THE 
WAY 
OF  THE 


JOHN 

LUTHER 

LONG 


MACMILLAN'S    STANDARD    LIBRARY 


THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 


THE    WAY    OF 
THE    GODS 


BY 


JOHN    LUTHER    LONG 

AUTHOR   OF  "  MADAME  BUTTERFLY,"   "  MISS   CHERRY   BLOSSOM," 
"THE  FOX  WOMAN,"   "  HEIMWEH,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
GROSSET    &    DUNLAP 

PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,  1906, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  1906.     Reprinted 
February,  xgix. 


Norton  oil  $>rr29 

J.  8.  Gushing  Co.  —  Kerwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


3523 


TO  HIM  WHO  OWNS 
HIS  JOY  BECAUSE 
HE  HAS  BOUGHT 
IT  WITH  SORROW  — 
OR  WILL  ++++++ 


/1 

C 


TAD  AIM  A  I  (Wait  a  moment!)       ....        3 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

IMPRIMIS 13 

I    Nippon  Denji 19 

II  The  Flying  of  the  August  Carp    ....  29 

III  A  Good  Lie 37 

IV  Yet  —  a  Lie  Loosens  Fealty          ....  47 
V    Yamato  Damashii 56 

VI    Yone" 65 

VII    Ping-Yang 76 

VIII    Dream-of-a-Star 81 

IX    Isonna 93 

X    The  Task  of  Jizo 101 

XI    Angel  of  the  Earth- Heaven 109 

XII    Impertinent  Isonna 119 

XIII  Only  to  Take  Her 129 

XIV  The  Going  of  the  Soldier 137 

XV    But  What  could  He  Do  ? 143 

XVI    The  Making  of  a  Goddess 153 

XVII    The  Eta 161 

XVIII    To  the  Emperor 160 

XIX    On  Myagi  Field 176 

XX    Faded  Glory 183 

XXI    In  the  Andon's  Light 195 

XXII    Tadaima-Tadaima ! 203 

XXIII  The  Pity  of  the  Gods 215 

XXIV  The  Land  of  the  Brave 226 

ix 


CONTENTS 


XXV  Jones 

XXVI  The  "  Tsarevitch  "     . 

XXVII  The  Small  White  Death     . 

XXVIII  "  Present  for  Duty  ". 

XXIX  The  Reincarnation  of  Shijiro  Arisuga 

XXX  Zanzi,  Lover  of  Battles 

XXXI  The  Tomb  of  Lord  Esas    . 

XXXII  When  the  Watch  Passed    . 

XXXIII  Teikoku  Banzai          .... 

XXXIV  Afterward 


PAGE 

231 
241 
251 
261 
269 
279 
285 
297 
303 
311 


TADAIMA 


TADAIMA 

I  THOUGHT  I  saw  the  bronze  god  Asamra 
(he  who  may  speak  but  once  in  a  thousand 
years,  and  whose  friendship  I  keep  by  making 
time  stand  still  for  him  in  the  stopping  of  the 
clock  and  its  turning  back)  shake  his  head  in 
doubt  as  I  put  the  manuscript  into  its  wrap 
pings  and  addressed  it  to  the  publisher. 

"Well?"   I  inquired,  testily. 

"  Suppose  They  do  not  like  it  ?"  sighed  thegod. 

' '  Why  should  They  not  ?  "  demanded  I,  loftily. 

"It  has,  among  other  unusualities,  (I  hope 
you  like  the  gentleness  of  the  word !)  those 
dashes  which  —  You  ought  to  have  learned 
by  this  time  that  They  don't  like  to  read  over 
dashes." 

"Why  not?"  asked  I,  again.  "/  like  them. 
And,  they  are  my  own!" 

"Well,  you  know  a  dash  necessitates  lucu 
bration.  It  stands  for  something  which  you 
trust  your  reader  to  supply.  That  is  unfair. 
If  you  are  writing  a  book  and  receiving  an 

3 


4  TADAIMA 

honorarium  for  it,  do  not  expect  him  to  do  it. 
It  is  a  bit  like  eating.  One  does  not  go  to  a 
restaurant,  and  pay  for  his  food,  then  cook  it 
himself." 

"I  have  seen  it  done, "  cried  I,  "by  particular 
people!" 

"Ahem!"  murmured  the  polite  god:  more 
polite  on  this  day  than  I  had  recently  observed 
him — which  meant  some  sort  of  propaganda. 

"It  is  not  an  ahem!"  I  went  on  in  the  un- 
regenerate  heat  which  the  friction  of  the  god 
often  engendered  in  me.  "Have  you  never 
seen  it  done?" 

"I  have,"  admitted  the  effigy,  "seen  a 
waiter  sorely  vexed  to  bring  the  materials  for 
a  salad — " 

"Aha!"   cried  I,  triumphantly. 

"Gomen  nasai,"  begged  the  deity,  "I  had 
not  finished.  I  have  seen  a  waiter,  I  say, 
sorely  vexed  to  bring  the  materials  for  a  salad 
which  the  maker  has  —  spoiled !" 

"Then,"  demanded  I,  with  icy  coldness,  "you 
think  that  if  I  permit  Them  to  supply  a  few 
thoughts  to  carry  Them  over  the  dashes  They 
will—" 

"Think  something  you  did  not  think;   per- 


TADAIMA  5 

haps  something  worse,"  the  effigy  finished, 
calamitously. 

"Or  better?"   I  suggested,  bitterly. 

"Or  better,"  agreed  the  god.  "There  is  a 
small  number  of  people  (but,  extremely  small) 
who  like  to  supply  in  full  what  you  suggest  in 
dashes.  It  tickles  Them  tremendously  to  think 
that  you  couldn't  have  done  it  so  well;  that 
you  trust  Them  to  do  it  better.  Often  They 
are  certain  that  They  have  helped  you  over  a 
place  you  could  not  help  yourself  over  —  hence 
the  dash." 

"Sometimes,"  I  mused,  diffidently,  "that  is 
true." 

"Ha,  ha!"  laughed  the  image,  and  our 
mood  became  more  human. 

"But,  do  you  mean  to  say,"  I  asked,  "that 
if  I  leave  John  and  Jane  in  the  upper  hall, 
and  take  them  up  again  in  the  lower  hall,  I 
must  acquaint  Them  with  the  fact  that  John 
and  Jane  have  been  obliged  to  traverse  the 
stairway  to  get  away  from  the  one  and  to 
reach  the  other?  Am  I  permitted  no  ellipsis 
in  so  patent  a  matter  as  that  ?  " 

"They  will  expect  the  stairway,"  sighed  the 
god. 


6  TADAIMA 

"And  a  page  for  each  step,  I  suppose !  How 
can  They  differ  from  me?  What  other 
thought  can  They  have  than  that  John  and 
Jane  descended  the  stairway  to  reach  the 
lower  hall?" 

"  There  may  be  a  back  stairway,  or  a  fire 
escape,"  chuckled  the  deity. 

"Then,  I  suppose,  I  must  spend  some  pages 
in  telling  Them  not  only  that  John  and  Jane 
descended  the  stair,  but  that  they  did  not 
descend  by  the  back  stair  or  the  fire  escape!" 

"It  would  be  better,"  said  the  idol.  "They 
can  skip  it.  But  They  cannot  deny  that  it  is 
there,  as  They  can  if  it  is  not.  They  would 
rather  skip  what  you  supply  than  supply  what 
you  skip.  One  is  Their  judgment  of  your 
mental  caliber  —  usually  too  small  —  the  other 
is  your  judgment  of  Theirs  —  usually  too 
generous.  Ahem !  There  is  a  golden  mean." 

"Besides,  however  bad  for  literature  it  may 
be,"  laughed  I,  "at  so  much  a  word,  it  is  good 
for  me !" 

"Well,"  ventured  god,  in  doubt,  "are  novels 
literature?" 

"I  am  not  the  one  to  say,"  I  retorted,  with 
some  asperity.  "I  manufacture  them.  But  I 


TADAIMA  7 

can  swear  that  they  are  better  literature  —  if 
literature  at  all  —  than  some  of  the  criticisms 
of  them  —  if  literature  at  all." 

"Have  I  touched  a  broken,  perhaps  often 
mended,  place  in  your  armor  ?  "  laughed  the  god. 

"Well,"  I  admitted,  crustily,  "I  have  read 
criticisms  of  English  —  no  matter  whose  —  the 
English  of  which  was  eminently  criticisable. 
Here  is  one.  The  gentleman  makes  no  distinc 
tion  in  the  uses  of  'which'  and  'that,'  and 
he  has  not  a  'who'  in  his  vocabulary." 

"I  have  my  eye  on  it,"  laughed  the  image, 
"and  I  admit  that  a  few  whiches  and  whos  for 
thats,  and  —  even  —  er  —  pardon  !  —  a  few  of 
your  dashes,  would  make  its  teaching  more 
grateful." 

"God,"  adjured  I,  happily,  "thank  you! 
Now  do  please  stop  and  think !  No  speech,  no 
thought,  goes  on  without  dashes.  When  we 
write  the  speech  which  flows  mellifluous,  we  do 
violence  to  nature.  And  in  all  art  the  ten 
dency  is  toward  nature." 

"Recently,"  began  the  deity,  in  that  high 
tone  which  always  meant  checkmate  to  me, 
"I  have  seen  the  statue  of  an  alleged  athlete, 
in  which  his  bunions  were  reproduced!" 


8  TADAIMA 

"I  saw  it,  too,"  I  laughed.  Indeed,  the  god 
and  I  had  stared  at  it  together. 

"Well,"  the  effigy  went  on,  "that  was  cer 
tainly  nature !" 

"There  is  a  golden  mean,"  I  re-quoted.  "An 
artistic  attitude  toward  all  manifestations  of  art. 
If  one  has  this  one  will  appreciate  —  er  — 
whether  to  reproduce  the  bunions.  They  may, 
of  course,  be  picturesque  bunions.  Why,  god, 
if  one  should  reproduce  human  speech,  as  it 
is  spoken,  there  would  be  a  dash  after  every 
third  word !  Mine  are  quite  within  bounds." 

"It  would  look  queer,"  said  the  god, 
"and  you  would  be  called  eccentric  instead 
of  original.  Please  don't  do  it !  In  fact 
stop  it !  Placate  both  your  readers  and  your 
critics." 

"Oh,  as  to  that,"  said  I,  airily,  "the  labor 
would  all  be  lost.  Anything  which  is  unusual 
to  the  superficial  experience  of  the  average 
person  is  glibly  dubbed  eccentric.  You  know 
how  it  is.  A  reader  likes  to  find  the  dear  old 
situations  in  advance  of  him  so  that  he  knows 
what  he  is  approaching.  There  is  the  same 
fear  of  the  terra  incognita  in  literature  that 
there  is  in  nature.  A  book  or  a  play  which 


TADAIMA  9 

is  too  novel  a  tax  upon  the  faculties  of  a  client 
is  not  to  his  liking." 

"Who,  pray,  do  you  write  books  for?" 
asked  the  effigy,  with  the  suspicion  of  a  yawn. 

"The  people  who  read  them,"  said  I,  cockily. 

"Do  They  include  the  critics?" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  I,  hastily. 

"Aren't  they  'people  who  read  them'?  " 

"Why,  they  are  critics,"  cried  I.  "How  can 
they?" 

"That  is  hard  doctrine,"  said  the  god,  dully. 
"If  you  write  for  the  people  who  read,  you 
must  submit  to  their  verdict.  And  the  critics 
are  a  part  of  them." 

"A  small  part.  But  they  pretend  to  speak 
for  the  whole.  Permit  me  to  explain  —  " 

The  god  politely  waited. 

"Your  critic  approaches  a  book  as  a  lawyer 
does  his  case  —  temperamentally  —  not  judi 
cially — with  an  opinion  of  it  in  advance  or  upon 
the  first  pages,  which  the  book  must  either  jus 
tify  or  fail  to  justify.  The  result  appears  in  his 
published  estimate.  He  states  his  view  as  if  it 
were  the  only  one.  And,  being  delivered  ex 
cathedra,  the  multitude  take  it  as  they  do 
their  preaching — for  the  gospel  of  Literature! 


10  TAD  AIM  A 

But  how  would  you  like  that  in  your  judge  ? 
Who  is  sworn  to  decide  upon  the  evidence 
adduced  alone? 

"So  it  happens  that  every  book  is  well  cursed 
and  well  blessed,  according  to  the  humor  of 
the  dissector.  And  the  cursing  and  blessing 
are  usually  about  equal." 

" There  does  seem  to  be  something  wrong 
about  criticism  which  can  be  unanimous  both 
ways,"  laughed  the  god. 

" There  ought  to  be  some  tribunal  to  which 
criticism  could  be  referred  upon  appeal  as  law 
suits  are,"  said  I.  "But,"  I  went  on,  hasten 
ing  a  bit  to  my  climax  as  the  god  seemed  to 
doze,  "the  most  terrible  of  all  criticism  is  the 
modern  humorous  kind  — 

"I  have  heard  an  odious  term  used  to  charac 
terize  those  who  make  it,"  whispered  the  deity. 

"The  man  who  can  do  nothing  else  —  and 
usually  he  can  do  nothing  else  —  can  poke  fun. 
It  is  a  peculiarly  tasteful  form  of  iconoclasm." 

Said  the  god :  — 

"If  I  should  sleep,  do  not  forget  to  stop  the 
clock." 

He  pretended  to  do  so. 

That  is  his  way  when  I  have  tired  him. 

J.  L.  L. 


IMPRIMIS 


IMPRIMIS 

FOUR  times  on  earth  and  once  elsewhere 
Shijiro  Arisuga  thought  the  happiest  moment 
of  his  life  had  come. 

But  you  are  to  be  warned,  in  two  proverbs, 
concerning  the  peril  of  the  thing  called  happi 
ness,  in  Japan.  One  has  it  that  happiness  is 
like  the  tai,  the  other  that  it  has  in  it  the 
note  of  the  uguisu.  Now,  the  tai  is  a  very 
common  fish,  and  the  uguisu  is  a  rare  bird  of 
one  sad  note,  reputed  to  be  sung  only  to  0- 
Emma,  god  of  death,  in  the  night,  most  often 
when  there  is  a  solemn  moon.  Which,  again, 
is  much  the  same  as  saying  that,  in  Japan,  at 
least,  happiness  is  the  common  lot,  and  easy 
to  get  as  to  catch  the  lazy  perch;  but  that  it 
has  its  sad  note,  which  may  have  to  be  sung 
in  the  darkness,  alone,  to  death. 

For  in  the  East  one  is  taught  to  be  no  more 
prodigal  with  one's  joy  than  with  one's  sor 
row.  The  sum  of  both  joy  and  sorrow,  it  is 
said,  are  immutably  the  same  in  the  world 

13 


14  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

from  eternity.  And  of  these  each  soul  born 
is  allotted  its  reasonable  share  as  the  gods 
adjudge  it.  So  that  if  one  takes  too  much 
joy  out  of  the  common  lot,  some  one,  perhaps 
many  ones,  must  receive  less  than  they  ought. 

Thus,  one  not  only  limits  the  rights  of  his 
fellow-men,  who  has  no  warrant  to  do  so,  but 
impiously  exercises  the  prerogatives  of  the 
gods,  than  which  nothing  can  be  more  heinous. 

For  this  larceny  of  joy,  therefore,  the  cul 
prit  must  suffer  more  than  his  share  of  woe, 
until  the  heavenly  balance  is  once  more  re 
stored.  And  that  may  be  in  this  life  or 
another,  in  this  world  or  another. 

So  you  observe  that  in  Japan,  among  those 
who  yet  believe  in  the  old  ways  of  the  gods 
(and  they  are  many  ! ),  it  is  perilous  to  be  over- 
happy.  For  one  is  almost  certain  to  pay  for  it 
with  over-woe.  And  this  is  the  happy  catch 
ing  of  the  tai  and  the  melancholy  note  of  the 
uguisu  which  wind  through  the  carols  of  one's 
joy  in  the  East. 

Yet,  when  one  is  always  happy,  as  Shijiro 
Arisuga  was  before  we  knew  him,  it  seems 
difficult  to  say  that  here  or  there  was  a  hap 
pier  moment. 


IMPRIMIS  15 

Therefore,  you  are  to  learn  of  each  of  these 
five  occasions  in  their  order,  according  to  your 
patience,  and,  quite  at  the  end,  you  are  to  be 
left  to  judge  for  yourself,  which  was,  indeed, 
the  happiest  moment  of  Shijiro  Arisuga's  life. 
There  will  come  a  time,  too,  —  at  the  end,  - 
when  you  will  know  nothing  of  Shijiro  Ari 
suga's  own  views  upon  the  subject:  he  will 
not  be  there  to  tell  them.  I  shall  try  to 
interpret  for  him.  But  you  are  not  to  be 
prejudiced  by  this  judgment  of  mine,  since 
you  cannot  know  Shijiro  Arisuga  as  well  as 
I  do  until  the  end  is  reached — quite  the  end. 

And  it  is  nothing  —  the  little  story  —  you 
are,  further,  warned,  until  the  woman  enters. 
Indeed,  nothing  is  anything  —  no  story  —  until 
woman  enters.  Try  to  fancy  Eden  without 
Eve! 

Not  that  Star-Dream  is  another  Eve;  nor 
that  this  is  like  the  first  love  story.  But 
there  is  a  Garden  and  a  Serpent ;  an  Apple  and 
a  Woman.  And,  from  that  Garden,  Shijiro 
Arisuga  is  driven  with  a  sword  which  flames. 
But  here  my  story  differs  entirely  from  that  of 
the  first  love  story.  For  the  woman  is  left  in 
the  garden  —  alone!  And  it  is  eternal  night. 


16  THE  WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

And  she  can  hardly  stay  there  alone.  For  the 
uguisu  sings.  I  wonder  if  Eve  could  have  been 
happy  in  Eden  alone?  With  the  singing  of 
the  death-bird?  You  will  remember  that 
though  they  were  driven  forth,  it  was  together : 
comrades  in  misfortune  as  in  joy  —  yet  com 
rades  ! 


NIPPON  DENJI 


NIPPON  DENJI 

Now,  the  first  of  these  five  great  occasions 
was  that  day  Shijiro  was  accepted  in  the 
haughty  Imperial  Guards,  most  of  whom  had 
genealogies  which  would  best  impress  us  by 
the  yards  of  illuminated  mulberry  paper  they 
covered.  Arisuga  had  many  of  such  yards 
himself.  That  was  not  a  question.  But  his 
inches  raised  many  questions.  The  Guards 
were  tall.  Shijiro  Arisuga  was  small.  Though 
he  was  a  samurai  of  the  samurai,  his  ancestors 
kug£,  it  seemed  impossible  to  admit  him  until 
Colonel  Zanzi  spoke. 

"He  is  a  samurai,"  said  Zanzi,  gruffly. 
"Of  course  all  Japanese  fight.  But  the  rest, 
the  commoners,  are  new  to  it.  It  is  possible 
in  a  pinch  for  them  to  run  away.  It  happened 
once  to  my  knowledge.  But  a  samurai  goes 
only  in  the  one  direction  when  he  is  before 
an  enemy.  You  all  know  what  direction  that 

19 


20  THE   WAY   OF  THE  GODS 

is.  The  commoner  may  be  as  good  as  the 
samurai  in  a  century.  But  the  samurai  is 
always  dependable  now.  I  wish  the  whole  of  the 
Guards  wereshizoku.  His  uncles,  the  Shijiro  of 
Aidzu,  though  they  were  shiro  men  at  Kyoto, 
and  so  against  the  emperor,  in  that  old  time, 
were,  nevertheless,  kuge  by  rank.  I  do  not  see 
how  we  can  keep  him  out  of  the  Guards.  I 
don't  want  to,  whether  he  is  tall  or  small." 

Now  Zanzi  was  an  autocrat  who  constantly 
pretended  that  he  was  not.  He  had  an  iron 
temper  which  he  nearly  always  concealed  under 
courteous  persistence,  until  his  men  understood 
what  must  be  without  his  ever  having  precisely 
said  that  it  must  be.  So,  in  this  matter,  he 
pretended  to  have  left  it  to  them.  But  he 
had  decided  upon  Shijiro's  final  admission  to 
the  regiment,  even  though  it  was  a  time  of 
peace,  when  one's  qualifications  were  more 
strictly  scanned  than  in  time  of  war,  simply  be 
cause  he  was  of  the  samurai,  whom  he  adored. 

" Nevertheless,"  warned  Nijin,  the  recruiting 
major,  "he  is  considerably  below  the  physical 
standard." 

"He  is  not  the  stuff  for  the  Guards,"  alleged 
Yasuki. 


NIPPON   DENJI  21 

And  Matsumoto  said :  — 

"I  have  heard  him  called  'Onna-Jin.'" 

"Girl-Boy!"  laughed  Jokichi.  "So  have 
I." 

"He  used  to  carry  a  samisen  about  with  him 
when  he  was  a  child  —  he  and  little  Yone, 
Baron  Mutsu's  daughter." 

This  came  from  Kitsushima,  who  added :  — 

"I  have  seen  them  at  Mukojima,  wandering 
under  the  cherry-boughs,  hand  in  hand,  and 
singing  childish  songs !" 

"I  have  seen  him  doing  that  later,  where  the 
lanterns  shine  in  Geisha  street,  and  the  little 
girl  was  not  YoneV' 

They  all  laughed.  This  was  not  seriously 
against  him. 

"Having  settled  it  that  he  practises  the  art 
of  music,  I  will  surprise  you  with  the  informa 
tion  that  he  also  pretends  to  the  sister  art  of 
poesy,"  laughed  Asami.  "He  is  the  author 
of  'The  Great  Death'!" 

"What!" 

From  half  a  dozen  of  them. 

And  they  broke  into  the  song:  hoarse,  iron, 
clanging,  mongolian !  Within  the  six  notes  of 
the  old  Japanese  scale ! 


22  THE   WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

(Do  not  be  surprised  at  this.  The  Japanese 
army  is  full  of  poets.  Indeed,  the  Japanese 
land  is  full  of  them.  They  will  spin  you  a  com 
plete  comedy  or  tragedy  between  seventeen  or 
thirty-seven  syllables.  And,  to  practise  poetry 
is  not  there  as  here,  heinous  to  one's  friends. 
I  know  of  a  gunner  who  sat  cross-legged  under 
his  gun  behind  Poutuloff  and  wrote  a  poem 
concerning  The-Moon-in-a-Moat.  It  was  fin 
ished  as  the  Russians  got  his  range  and  dropped 
a  covey  of  shrapnel  upon  him.  After  the  smoke 
cleared  they  found  him  dead.  And  he  is  for 
gotten.  But  his  poem  was  also  found  and 
lived  on.) 

This  was ' '  The  Great  Death  "  of  Shij  iro  Arisuga. 

"  Yell  of  metal, 

Strake  of  flame ! 
Death-wound  spurting 

In  my  face ! 
Hail  Red  Death ! " 

"Banzai!"    cried  Jokichi. 

"Teikoku  Banzai !"   yelled  Asami. 

And,  after  the  tumult,  Yasuki,  the  reserved, 
himself  said :  — 

"By  Shaka,  it  is  the  very  Yamato  Damashi 
itself !  The  spirit  of  young  Japan." 


NIPPON   DENJI  23 

"Nippon  Denji!"  laughed  jolly  Kitsushima. 

"Yes!  The  Boys  in  Blue  —  as  they  called 
them  in  America  in  1864." 

Matsumoto  had  been  to  Princeton.  But 
the  thought  of  war  —  giving  his  soul  for  his 
emperor  —  made  him  as  mad  as  they  who  had 
never  left  their  native  soil. 

"I  take  all  back,"  cried  Nijin,  into  the  tumult. 

"And  I,"  yelled  Yasuki,  who  had  agreed 
with  him. 

"Let  him  in!"  shrilled  Matsumoto  and 
Jokichi  together.  "If  he  can  write  songs  - 

"And  let  him  sing!  Let  him  sing  war- 
songs!"  adjured  Kitsushima! 

Still,  the  happy  Nijin,  out  of  propriety  of  his 
office,  as  recruiting-major,  pretended  to  wish 
to  stem  the  current  started  by  the  song. 

"One  moment!"  he  cried. 

But  they  laughed  him  down  and  again  started 
the  war-song. 

"I  will  have  a  moment!" 

"Take  two!"   shouted  Jokichi. 

"Singing  and  fighting  are  two  very  different 
occupations." 

"No,  they  are  precisely  the  same,"  laughed 
Kitsushima. 


24  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"I  deny  it!" 

It  was  a  fierce  yell  from  Nijin,  who  was  hap 
piest,  to  pretend  tremendous  anger. 

"I  affirm  it !"  laughed  Jokichi,  into  his  face. 

" Pretender!"  cried  Asami,  shaking  a  happy 
fist  at  his  superior. 

Asami  and  Nijin  stood  with  Zanzi  for  his 
admission. 

Still,  Nijin  said  in  thunder:  — 

"Remember !  poets  never  practise  their 
preaching." 

Nevertheless,  if  he  had  entered  then,  Arisuga 
would  have  been  chosen,  by  acclaim,  because 
of  his  song. 

But  enthusiasm  cools  rapidly,  and  these 
stoical  orientals  could  be  moved  to  enthusiasm 
by  but  this  one  thing  —  war. 

So  that  after  a  month  —  two  —  it  required 
another  word  from  grizzled  Zanzi,  who  had 
been  in  the  war  of  the  Restoration,  to  let 
Shijiro  in. 

"  Jokoji !"  That  was  the  word.  "His  father 
is  at  Jokoji!" 

And  they  demanded,  and  he  told,  the 
story  of  Jokoji  —  which,  pardon  me,  I  do  not 
mean  to  tell.  Save  this  little,  so  that  you  may 


NIPPON  DENJI  25 

understand,  that  it  was  that  last  terrible  stand 
of  Saigo  behind  the  hills  of  Kagoshima,  where 
the  Shogunate  perished  and  the  empire  was 
born  again  in  1868.  And  the  shoguns  you  may 
care  to  know  were  that  mighty  line  of  feodal 
chieftains  who  had  usurped  the  throne  from 
the  time  of  Yoritomo,  to  that  of  Keiki.  For 
all  these  years  the  imperial  power  had  rioted 
at  Yedo,  in  the  hands  of  two  generals,  while 
the  emperor,  a  prisoner  in  his  palace-hermitage 
in  Kyoto,  had  been  but  the  high  priest  of  his 
people. 

They  are  there  yet,  at  Jokoji,  to  the  last 
man,  Saigo  and  his  gallant  rebels,  in  a  great 
trench,  without  their  heads,  a  warning  to  fu 
ture  rebels. 

After  that  other  word  —  Jokoji  —  Arisuga 
was  chosen. 

Observe  that  they  finally  took  him  because 
of  his  father  —  though  he  died  a  rebel.  In 
deed,  those  old  insurgents,  of  1868,  are  grad 
ually  being  canonized  with  crimson  death- 
names,  because  they  neither  knew  dishonor, 
no,  nor  suffered  it. 


24  THE  WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"I  deny  it!" 

It  was  a  fierce  yell  from  Nijin,  who  was  hap 
piest,  to  pretend  tremendous  anger. 

"I  affirm  it !"  laughed  Jokichi,  into  his  face. 

"  Pretender !"  cried  Asami,  shaking  a  happy 
fist  at  his  superior. 

Asami  and  Nijin  stood  with  Zanzi  for  his 
admission. 

Still,  Nijin  said  in  thunder:  — 

"Remember!  poets  never  practise  their 
preaching." 

Nevertheless,  if  he  had  entered  then,  Arisuga 
would  have  been  chosen,  by  acclaim,  because 
of  his  song. 

But  enthusiasm  cools  rapidly,  and  these 
stoical  orientals  could  be  moved  to  enthusiasm 
by  but  this  one  thing  —  war. 

So  that  after  a  month  —  two  —  it  required 
another  word  from  grizzled  Zanzi,  who  had 
been  in  the  war  of  the  Restoration,  to  let 
Shijiro  in. 

"  Jokoji !"  That  was  the  word.  "His  father 
is  at  Jokoji !" 

And  they  demanded,  and  he  told,  the 
story  of  Jokoji  —  which,  pardon  me,  I  do  not 
mean  to  tell.  Save  this  little,  so  that  you  may 


NIPPON  DENJI  25 

understand,  that  it  was  that  last  terrible  stand 
of  Saigo  behind  the  hills  of  Kagoshima,  where 
the  Shogunate  perished  and  the  empire  was 
born  again  in  1868.  And  the  shoguns  you  may 
care  to  know  were  that  mighty  line  of  feodal 
chieftains  who  had  usurped  the  throne  from 
the  time  of  Yoritomo,  to  that  of  Keiki.  For 
all  these  years  the  imperial  power  had  rioted 
at  Yedo,  in  the  hands  of  two  generals,  while 
the  emperor,  a  prisoner  in  his  palace-hermitage 
in  Kyoto,  had  been  but  the  high  priest  of  his 
people. 

They  are  there  yet,  at  Jokoji,  to  the  last 
man,  Saigo  and  his  gallant  rebels,  in  a  great 
trench,  without  their  heads,  a  warning  to  fu 
ture  rebels. 

After  that  other  word  —  Jokoji  —  Arisuga 
was  chosen. 

Observe  that  they  finally  took  him  because 
of  his  father  —  though  he  died  a  rebel.  In 
deed,  those  old  insurgents,  of  1868,  are  grad 
ually  being  canonized  with  crimson  death- 
names,  because  they  neither  knew  dishonor, 
no,  nor  suffered  it. 


n 

THE  FLYING  OF  THE  AUGUST  CARP 

THERE  was  a  time,  of  course,  when  Shijiro 
was  too  young  to  think  of  being  a  soldier  — 
save  of  the  tin-sworded  and  cocked-hatted 
kind.  And  it  must  be  confessed,  nay,  it  was 
confessed,  by  his  uncles  with  profound  sorrow, 
that  he  cared  little  enough  for  even  that. 
It  is  quite  true  that  lighted  paper  lanterns 
gleaming  in  the  night,  and  morning  glories 
with  first  sun  on  them,  and  his  small  samisen, 
pleased  him  more.  All  this  was  quite  heinous 
to  his  samurai  uncles  and  they  did  what  they 
could  to  correct  it  and  instil  into  the  little 
mind  of  the  boy  that  love  for  the  glory  of 
combat  which  they  had.  But,  as  often  hap 
pens,  their  care  and  their  prayers  availed 
them  nothing,  while  their  carelessness  and 
their  repinings  availed  much.  Of  that  I  shall 
stop  and  tell :  the  picture  —  the  flying  of  the 
carp  —  how  all  the  life  of  the  little  boy  was 

29 


30  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

changed  in  one  night, — so  that  he  thought  no 
more  of  Yone*,  the  lanterns  and  the  flowers,  but 
only  of  being  a  soldier. 

It  was  that  day  when  he  was  ten.  All  his 
relatives  were  present  and  they  flew  a  tre 
mendous  number  of  paper  carp.  For  you  are 
to  know  that  this  is  the  way  the  gods  have  of 
telling  one  on  one's  birthday  in  Japan,  whether 
one  is  to  be  as  strong  and  virile  as  the  open- 
mouthed  carp  in  a  swift  wind,  or  as  flaccid 
as  they  when  there  is  no  wind.  The  gods 
were  kind  and  sent  a  propitious  day.  The  carp 
stood  out,  straining  upon  their  poles  so  that 
some  of  them  broke  loose  and  whirled  cloud- 
ward  —  whereat  the  multitude  of  Arisuga's 
relatives  shouted  with  joy.  For  this  was  an 
august  omen  of  great  good.  Arisuga  cared 
nothing  for  the  omen.  But  the  carp  eddying 
upward,  and  those  straining  on  their  poles,  were 
very  fine. 

The  tired,  happy  little  boy  had  been  put 
early  to  bed,  while  his  uncles  remained  to  smoke 
and  gossip.  For  one  was  from  Kobe  and  the 
other  was  from  Osaka,  and  they  did  not  meet 
as  often  as  they  could  have  wished. 

For  a  long  time  there  was  no  sound  save  the 


THE   FLYING   OF   THE   AUGUST   CARP      31 

tapping  of  their  pipes  against  the  metal  rim 
of  the  hibachi  as  they  were  emptied  of  their 
ashes  to  be  filled  again.  This  is  still  much  the 
way  of  ceremonious  old  men  in  Japan.  They 
have  learned  the  comradeship  of  silence. 

Presently  this  sound  of  the  tapping  pipes 
woke  the  little  boy  from  his  dreaming ;  and  hear 
ing  whisperings  in  the  room  beyond  he  crept 
from  his  futons  to  the  fusuma,  which  he  silently 
parted  to  look  and  listen. 

His  small  eyes  grew  greater  as  he  saw  that 
his  two  uncles  were  still  there,  and  greater  yet 
as  he  observed  that  they  gesticulated  in  the 
direction  of  the  picture  of  "The  Great  Death" 
while  they  whispered. 

Now  this  was  a  thing  which  had  always 
troubled  him:  that  they  whispered  together 
about  that  picture,  and  that,  somehow,  he  was 
included  in  the  mystery.  It  had  hung  there 
at  the  tokonoma  since  he  could  remember.  He 
had  been  taught  to  reverence  it;  for  nowhere 
have  pictures  more  influence  than  in  Japan. 

It  was  divided  in  the  horizontal  middle 
into  two  panels.  In  that  below  was  carnage 
amazing.  On  the  one  side  were  the  hosts  of 
the  emperor  under  the  brocade  banner  (the 


32  THE   WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

most  ancient  Japanese  flag  of  war),  yet  armed 
with  guns  and  using  cannon.  On  the  other 
side  were  the  rebel  hosts  of  Saigo  with  ancient 
halberds  and  spears  and  in  bamboo  armor, 
depending  upon  the  gods  alone.  Dying  upon 
one  of  the  cannon,  with  a  shout  upon  his  lips 
and  ecstasy  upon  every  feature,  was  a  soldier 
in  the  uniform  of  the  ancient  Imperial  Guards. 
The  panel  above  showed  one  of  the  heavens 
far  toward  nirvana.  There  this  same  soldier 
appeared  glorified  and  on  the  way  to  his  reward 
in  Shaka's  bosom.  Of  course !  He  had  died 
for  the  emperor !  The  artist  had  not  spared 
the  glory  when  he  came  to  write  the  picture. 
And  yet  he  had  preserved  a  certain  family 
likeness,  so  that  little  Arisuga  presently  came 
to  know,  by  the  subtle  presence  and  teaching 
of  his  uncles,  that  this  was  Jokoji,  the  grave 
yard-battlefield  in  Satsuma,  and  that  the  figure 
informed  with  the  ecstasy  of  the  great  red 
death  for  the  emperor,  was  his  father ! 

That  no  part  of  the  lesson  might  be  lost,  the 
artist  had  also  shown,  in  that  lower  panel,  the 
obverse  of  the  reward  of  fealty.  Those  who 
had  fought  against  the  emperor  were  being 
tossed  like  dogs  into  a  trench.  Their  heads 


THE   FLYING   OF   THE   AUGUST   CARP      33 

were  off.  And  the  little  boy  had  been  taught 
to  have  no  pity  upon  them.  Of  course !  He 
had  none.  They  had  impiously  rebelled  against 
that  god  whose  other  name  is  Mutsuhito,  Mi 
kado  ! 

Moreover,  in  the  lower  corner  of  this  panel, 
in  an  amazing  opening  among  clouds  with 
blazing  edges,  was  that  part  of  the  hells  re 
served  for  the  souls  of  traitors;  and  there  the 
enemies  of  the  emperor,  who  had  died  at 
Jokoji,  were  being  variously  tortured,  in  the 
intervals  of  their  reincarnations. 


A   GOOD    LIE 


Ill 

A  GOOD   LIE 

SAID  Namishima,  Arisuga's  uncle  from  Kobe*, 
to  Kiomidzu,  his  uncle  from  Osaka :  — 

"The  flying  of  the  august  carp  has  been 
honorably  auspicious  and  doubtless  the  gods 
now  design  to  make  him,  in  spirit,  unlike  his 
regretted  father." 

"It  was  the  gods'  punishment  upon  him  for 
fighting  against  his  emperor  —  that  his  son 
should  miserably  be  an  onna-jin,"  whispered 
Kiomidzu. 

"Nevertheless  the  honorable  picture  has 
aided  greatly  in  making  him  adore  the  em 
peror,"  protested  Namishima. 

"Yes,  the  money  for  its  painting  was  augustly 
well  spent,"  agreed  Kiomidzu,  wisely  shaking 
his  head. 

"Some  day  he  will  know,  notwithstanding, 
that  his  father  was  a  rebel.  Others  know.  It 
cannot  unhappily  be  kept  from  him  always." 

37 


38  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"No." 

"Perhaps  then  we  shall  be  augustly  dead — " 

Both  bowed  and  murmured  again. 

"And  beyond  his  most  excellent  vengeance." 

"Nevertheless,"  said  Namishima,  finally, 
"the  august  conscience  within  informs  me  that 
we  have  brought  him  up  honorably  well!" 

"There  is  excellently  no  doubt  of  it!" 
agreed  Kiomidzu. 

They  bowed  to  each  other. 

For  a  while  there  was  silence  and  the 
tapping  of  the  pipes.  Then  they  spoke  of  a 
new  and  weightier  matter. 

Said  Namishima  —  and  here  the  little  boy's 
eyes  bulged :  — 

"If  the  soul  of  our  brother  continues  to  wander 
in  the  Meido,  it  will  not  be  chargeable,  now,  in 
the  heavens,  to  us,  but  to  him.  We  have  kept 
the  lamps  alight.  We  have  taught  him  honor." 

"We  are  too  aged,  also,"  agreed  Kiimidzu, 
"to  redeem  him  forth  unto  the  way  to  the 
heavens  by  dying  in  his  stead  the  great  death. 
It  is  for  his  son!" 

"In  us,  besides,"  Namishima  went  on,  "the 
gods  could  not  be  augustly  deceived.  But  the 
child  has  his  name." 


A  GOOD  LIE  39 

"Therefore,  should  he  die  the  great  death, 
the  merciful  gods  may  be  deceived  by  the 
name  into  thinking  it  he  who  died  at  Jokoji. 
In  that  case  he  would  not  only  be  redeemed  to 
the  way  to  the  heavens,  but  on  this  earth  his 
name  would  be  graciously  added  to  honor." 

So  said  he  from  Kobe*.  And  he  from 
Osaka : — 

"For  the  gods  are  merciful!" 

"So  merciful,  I  sometimes  abjectly  think, 
that  they  desire  to  be  deceived,  for  our  peace 
of  mind." 

"Or,  at  least,"  mended  Kiomidzu,  to  whom 
this  was  a  trifle  too  much,  "they  will  close  their 
eyes  while  we  augustly  do  it." 

Namishima  disliked  a  trifle  the  correction  of 
his  brother :  — 

"Do  not  the  gods  so  act  upon  the  minds  of 
their  creatures  that  they  remember  or  forget? 
Well,  then!  It  is  true  that  now  others  know 
that  our  brother  died  on  the  rebel  side  at 
Jokoji.  But  do  we  not  know  that,  in  the 
course  of  much  time,  the  gods  can  make  this 
to  be  forgotten,  and  make  to  be  remembered 
that  he  died  on  the  emperor's  side?" 

"Yea,  if  his  son  should  die  for  the  emperor." 


40  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"Yea  !    For  the  name  is  the  same !" 

"And  I  have  had  a  sign  in  a  dream,"  said 
Kiomidzu,  lowering  his  voice  a  little  more. 
"Before  me  stood  a  tall  god  — " 

They  both  bowed  and  rubbed  their  hands. 

" — I  knew  neither  his  august  name  nor  his 
presence.  But  his  face  shone  as  the  sun,  so 
that  it  is  certain  he  was  a  god  who  can  see  the 
end  from  the  beginning,  and  all  between.  And 
thus  he  spake:  'Rise  and  light  the  lamps 
and  burn  the  sweet  and  bitter  incense.  For 
Shijiro  Arisuga,  he  who  died  at  Jokoji,  shall 
have  a  crimson  death-name.' " 

"How  shall  that  come  to  pass,  augustness?" 
I  asked  upon  my  face. 

"'Through  his  son/"  said  the  god.  "'The 
names  are  the  same.  Arise  and  light  the  lamps 
and  burn  the  bitter  incense.' " 

"And  the  augustness  only  vanished  with  the 
light  of  the  new  lamps  I  lighted  before  Shijiro's 
tablet." 

"Yet,"  doubted  Namishima,  though  a  deity 
had  spoken,  "the  vengeance  of  the  gods 
must  also  first  be  accomplished  —  yea,  satis 
fied  full !  And  until  he  is  redeemed  by  this 
unhappy  onna-jin,  must  our  brother  wander 


A  GOOD   LIE  41 

in  the  dark  Meido  —  so  think  I !  The  new 
lamps  will  be  sacrilege." 

" Nevertheless,  one  cannot  honorably  tell," 
argued  the  milder  uncle  from  Osaka,  himself 
not  convinced  by  his  vision.  "His  father  was 
no  taller  nor  of  a  greater  spirit  than  he.  He 
may  not  always  be  an  onna-jin.  And,  also,  any 
day  the  vengeance  of  the  gods  may  be  satisfied 
and  they  will  permit  him  to  redeem  both  his 
own  and  the  spirit  of  his  father.  For  I  believe  it 
true  that  he  was  not  beheaded  by  the  victors  at 
Jokoji,  and  cast  into  the  ditch  as  dogs  are  cast, 
but  committed  the  honorable  seppuku  upon 
himself.  That  he  would  do." 

"Let  it  be  hoped  so.  This  is  our  one  blot 
wherefor  we  cannot  speak  of  our  ancestors." 

And  they  chafed  a  prayer  from  between  their 
hands  that  it  might  all  be  so. 

The  little  boy  parted  the  fusuma  yet  more 
and  looked.  He  had  been  taught  that  his  face 
must  always  be  as  expressionless  as  if  it  were 
always  under  observation.  And  these  old 
uncles  had,  more  than  others,  taught  him 
so.  Yet  now  they  were  not  observing  their 
own  precepts.  Their  faces  were  unmasked, 
and  showed  terror  and  anxiety.  And  this 


42  THE   WAY   OF  THE  GODS 

communicated  itself  to  the  boy  as  he  looked. 

"Does  it  matter  to  the  gods,"  asked  Kio- 
midzu,  "how  fealty  to  the  heaven-born-one  is 
augustly  inculcated?" 

"  'The  way  does  not  matter  when  one  is 
arrived!'"  said  Namishima. 

"And  'a  lie  which  doeth  good/'  quoted 
Kiomidzu,  "'is,  manifestly,  a  good  lie.": 

"Happy  is  he,"  said  Namishima,  "who, 
being  a  liar  for  the  truth,  is  willing,  like  us,  to 
abide  by  its  consequences  from  the  unen 
lightened,  to  whom  there  is  but  one  office  in  a 
lie  — evil!" 

"Nembutsu!"  agreed  the  brother  of  Na 
mishima,  his  hard  hands  rasping  with  his 
prayer  as  do  the  soles  of  worn  sandals. 

And  then  they  went  on,  to  the  end  of  the 
story  of  this  picture  of  "The  Great  Death," 
which  had  been  painted  and  hung  at  the 
tokonoma  when  Arisuga  was  a  child  to  deceive 
him  into  thinking  that  his  father  had  honorably 
fought  and  died  for  his  emperor  instead  of 
against  him,  that  his  soul  was  probably  in 
Buddha's  bosom  instead  of  wandering  in  the 
alien  dark  Meido,  unredeemed,  that  his  body 
had  been  burned  on  a  pyre  instead  of  left  to 


A   GOOD    LIE  43 

rot  in  that  great  ditch  in  Jokoji.  This  these 
old  imperialists  fancied  their  duty.  The  little 
boy  sobbed  there  behind  the  shoji. 

"Sh !"  whispered  the  uncle  from  Osaka. 

"Sh!"  echoed  the  uncle  from  Kobe*.  "He 
wakes.  If  he  should  hear,  all  would  be  of  no 
avail." 

They  covered  the  fire  of  the  hibachi  and 
caused  a  darkness  in  which  they  stole  away. 


YET  — A   LIE   LOOSENS   FEALTY 


IV 

YET  — A  LIE   LOOSENS   FEALTY 

THE  little  boy  slept  no  more.  He  got  forth 
from  his  small  room  and  made  the  offerings,  and 
lighted  the  incense  which  he  had  forgotten  that 
tired,  joyous  day,  and  then  he  took  down  his 
father's  ihai,  and  touching  to  it  his  forehead, 
pledged  all  his  lives  to  make  true  that  which 
had  been  made  false.  For,  yes,  their  names 
were  the  same,  his  father's  and  his,  and  the 
gods  are  easily  deceived  —  Shijiro  Arisuga 
should  be  upon  the  brass  of  those  who  had  died 
for  the  emperor !  The  gods  would  attend  to 
the  forgetting  which  must  follow. 

But  this  was  not  enough.  The  filial  sin  they 
had  let  him  commit  vexed  his  little  soul. 

Where  he  had  made  a  dim  wisp  of  fibre  to 
burn  in  oil  before  the  tablet  of  his  father,  he 
rubbed  a  prayer  from  between  his  small  pink 
palms. 

"Father  and  all  the  augustnesses,  I  did  not 

47 


48  THE  WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

know,"  he  said  childishly,  "that  your  spirit 
waited  in  the  dark  Meido  for  me  to  set  it  free. 
There  were  lies  ! " 

Then  he  stopped  and  waited,  for  the  tears  ran 
down  his  face  and  choked  his  voice. 

"It  would  have  been  better  to  teach  me 
truth  than  lies.  For  they  have  not  made  me 
wish  to  fight  and  die  for  the  emperor  —  lies. 
But  this,  this  that  you  wait,  wait  always  in  the 
cold  dark  Meido  for  me  to  set  you  on  your  way 
to  the  sleep  in  Buddha's  bosom,  this  it  is  which 
makes  me  promise,  here,  now,  by  all  the  eight 
hundred  thousand,  by  my  own  soul's  reincarna 
tions,  all  of  them,  that  you  shall  be  free ;  that 
your  name  shall  yet  stand  among  those  on  the 
brass  who  are  not  forgotten." 

"I  did  not  know,"  he  sobbed  again.  "And 
so  I  sang  songs  and  made  poems  while  you 
wandered  there.  I  did  not  know.  I  was  only 
a  little  boy.  But  now  I  am  at  once  a  man. 
It  is  true,  august  father,  I  must  not  lie  to  you, 
that  I  would  rather  be  at  Shiba  with  Yone*; 
I  would  rather  walk  on  the  hills  with  her  hand 
in  mine;  I  would  rather  sing  as  she  plays  the 
samisen;  but  I  will  be  a  soldier." 

And  then  a  strange  thing  happened  —  and 


YET  — A  LIE  LOOSENS  FEALTY     49 

you  must  not  fail  to  remember  that  stranger 
things  happen  in  Japan  than  here — there  came  a 
crackling,  ripping  noise  at  the  last  word  of  that 
prayer,  and  the  upper  panel  of  the  false  picture 
loosed  itself  from  the  brocade  to  which  it  was 
attached  and,  falling,  covered  completely  the 
lower  panel  and  blotted  out  the  whole.  And 
that  night  yet,  the  little  boy  got  his  father's 
seal,  and,  where  it  fell,  there  he  sealed  it  fast. 

So  that  when  his  uncles  again  saw  it  they 
grew  troubled,  kowtowed  and  made  a  prayer. 
For  suddenly,  also,  Arisuga,  from  a  child,  at  ten 
had  become  man.  All  he  said  to  them  when 
they  diffidently  undertook  a  question  was :  — 

"I  know  the  samurai  commandment:  'Thou 
shalt  not  live  under  the  same  heavens  nor  upon 
the  same  earth  with  the  enemy  of  thy  lord ! ' ' 

"The  commandments  are  not  for  children," 
said  the  uncle  from  Osaka,  gently. 

"That  I  know  well,"  answered  Arisuga.  "For 
I  am  not  a  child." 

Said  the  terrified  one  from  Kob6,  "It  does 
not  mean  that  you  must  quit  the  earths  and  the 
heavens  - 

"But,  rather,"  supplemented  the  one  from 
Osaka,  "that  they  shall- 


50  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"That  you  shall  kill  many  enemies  of  your 
lord  and  live  yourself  —  my  child  - 

"Cease !  I  am  not  a  child/7  said  Arisuga 
again,  haughtily,  "and  I  know  the  command 
ments  !" 

"Nevertheless  that,"  said  the  one,  "is  a 
manifestation  from  the  gods!" 

He  pointed  to  the  picture. 

"There  have  been  many  such,"  said  the  other. 
"It  means  something." 

"Yes,"  said  the  little  boy,  significantly,  "it 
means  something !" 

"But  were  you  present  when  the  gods  ob 
scured  the  picture?"  ventured  Kiomidzu. 

"I  was  present,"  said  Arisuga. 

"And  is  it  that  which  has  changed  you?" 
further  ventured  Namishima. 

"No,"  declared  Arisuga,  looking  upon  them 
both  sternly,  and  without  an  honorific  for  either. 

"I  trust,"  whined  Kiomidzu,  "that  all  is 
well  between  us?" 

"All  is  as  well  as  it  ever  will  be,"  said  the  boy. 

Then,  after  a  silence,  he  added:  — 

"And  the  sun  is  setting!" 

Which  meant,  indeed,  that  they  were  driven 
from  the  door  of  their  brother's  house  by  his  son ! 


YET  — A   LIE   LOOSENS    FEALTY  51 

When  they  were  in  their  going  the  boy 
said :  — 

"If  I  have  sinned  against  the  honorable 
hospitality,  remember  that  a  lie  loosens  fealty !" 

And  when  they  were  in  the  way,  one  said  to 
the  other:  — 

"He  knows!" 

After  some  thought  he  who  was  addressed 
answered :  - 

"I  think  it  very  well.  I  have  no  regret. 
Our  brother  will  now  be  released  from  the 
Meido.  He  will  die  for  the  emperor." 

"However,  we  shall  be  unwelcome  in  his 
presence,  so  that  I  shall  come  less  often." 

To  this  his  brother  agreed  with  melancholy. 

"Our  work  is  now  done." 

Thus,  Shijiro  was  much  more  alone  than 
before,  and  had  many  more  thoughts.  But  all 
were  of  war  and  the  great  red  death,  and  none 
of  Yone'. 

And  then,  presently,  he  came  to  join  the 
haughty  Imperial  Guards,  who  had  never 
dreamed  of  being  a  soldier,  but  only  of  poetry, 
and  cherry-blossoms,  and  his  samisen,  and 
the  soft  satin  hand  of  the  little  Yone*.  For 
it  was  true,  as  Nijin  said,  and  as  they  all  agreed, 


52  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

Arisuga  among  them,  that  he  was  not  the  stuff 
out  of  which  the  empire  made  its  Imperial 
Guards  —  quite. 

It  was  in  this  time,  in  the  presence  of  the 
obscured  picture,  that  he  wrote  his  song  of 
"The  Great  Death." 

And  his  years  grew  faster  than  his  inches. 


TAMATO    DAMASHII 


YAMATO   DAMASHII 

AND,  slowly,  that  fantasy  of  a  great  death 
which  infects  every  Japanese  crept  into  the 
life  and  thought  of  Shijiro  Arisuga.  Though 
it  came  to  him,  in  whom  it  had  lain  latent, 
hardly.  But,  perhaps  for  that  reason,  as  is 
the  case  with  certain  diseases,  it  came  with 
greater  certainty  and  severity  than  if  it  had 
been  always  with  him. 

Yet  the  Yamato  Damashii  outstripped  them 
both :  the  spirit  of  war  —  the  ghost  of  Japan  ! 

He  still  went  with  little  Yone  to  Mukojima 
sometimes,  though  less  frequently.  And  the 
small  heart  of  the  small  girl  wondered  and  grew 
hurt  at  this.  So  that  she  asked  him  one  day :  — 

"Little  lord,  why  is  it  that  we  so  seldom  come 
here  and  that  you  no  more  sing,  no  more  carry 
your  samisen,  and  are  grown  too  suddenly  for 
your  years  a  man  with  a  face  as  serious  as  the 
unlaughing  barbarians  of  the  West — why  is  it  ?  " 

55 


56  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

They  were  at  Shiba.  And  Shijiro  laughed 
again,  as  he  had  used  to  laugh,  while  he  an 
swered  :  — 

"Sing  no  more!    Listen!" 

"Reign  on  for  a  thousand 

years  of  peace ! 
Reign  on  for  a  myriad  years 

of  ease ! 

Till  the  pebbles  are  boulders, 
Moss  grows  to  our  shoulders, 
O  heaven-born  lord  of  Nippon  !" 

"The  Kimi  Gayo!"  said  the  little  girl. 
"You  sing  the  Imperial  Hymn  with  that  light 
in  your  face  who  never  sang  it  before — whose 
face  was  never  before  so  lighted  ?  You  answer 
my  fear  with  fears." 

"  I  sing  a  war-song,  little  moon-maid,  because 
I  am  now  a  soldier,"  cried  Arisuga,  with  a 
certain  fanatical  ecstasy  in  spite  of  his  gayety. 
"I  am  going  to  die  for  the  emperor  the  great 
death !  I  am  going  to  set  my  father  free  to 
pursue  his  way  to  the  heavens  or  another  re 
incarnation  !  Think  !  The  gods  will  love  me 
for  such  a  holy  thing !  Why  do  not  you?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  whispered  the  little  girl,  "the 
gods  will  love  you.  And  I.  But  who,  then, 


YAMATO   DAMASHII  57 

will  come  with  me  here?  And  who  will  hold 
my  hand?" 

"My  spirit,  I  promise  you  that!" 

A  little  chill  crept  over  the  girl. 

"Yes,"  she  answered  doubtfully,  "if  I  cannot 
have  your  body." 

Shijiro  still  laughed. 

"After  all,  a  spirit  is  a  safer  comrade  than  a 
body.  The  custodians  cannot  drive  it  away 
from  the  tombs.  And  will  you  wait  here  for 
my  spirit,  as  you  do  for  my  body?" 

"Yes,"  she  whispered,  in  her  awe,  once  more. 

But  he  gayly  touched  her. 

"I  will  come  like  that  —  that  —  that ! " 

"I  would  rather  have  you  so,"  said  the  little 
girl,  touching  him,  as  flesh  touches  flesh,  not 
as  spirit  touches  flesh  in  the  East. 

Though  she  suspected  that  he  was  laughing 
at  her,  it  was  in  a  land  where  both  the  spirits 
which  loved  one  and  hated  one  were  believed 
to  be  always  at  one's  elbow. 

Now  that  it  had  all  been  decided  —  his 
career  fixed,  the  way  made  clear,  and  he  well 
in  it  —  much  of  his  absorption  had  passed 
away,  and  he  was  both  gayer  and  gentler  with 
her.  But  it  was  not  as  before. 


58  THE   WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

" There  will  be  others,  with  bodies,"  laughed 
Shijiro. 

The  small  maiden  shook  her  head. 

"No,  there  will  not  be  others.  I  know.  Oh, 
how  differently  you  speak  to  me  now !  You 
are  suddenly  grown  a  man  with  great  thoughts. 
But  you  still  think  of  me  as  a  little  girl  with 
small  thoughts.  Well,  perhaps  I  am.  Yet  I 
shall  wait  for  you  here.  I  can  do  that.  The 
gods  may  not  accept  your  sacrifice  for  a  time. 
They  may  not  accept  it  at  all.  And  there  may 
be  no  war  for  you  to  fight  and  die  in.  You  may 
have  to  come  back.  No  one  can  know  the 
purposes  of  the  gods.  And  when  you  do,  I, 
with  my  small  body  and  small  thought,  will  be 
here  only  to  make  you  happy." 

"And,  suppose,"  laughed  Shijiro,  treating 
her  indeed  as  if  he  were  suddenly  become  a 
man  and  she  were  still  a  little  girl,  "suppose 
I  go  away  and  forget  —  that  often  happens  — 
and  never  come  back?" 

And  Arisuga  laughed  again. 

"I  will  wait,"  said  the  girl. 

"What,  after  I  have  forgotten?" 

"Do  not  tell  me.  Let  no  one  tell  me.  Let 
me  wait.  Then  your  spirit  may  come.  It  is 


YAMATO  DAMASHII  59 

cruel  to  wait,  always  wait.     But  it  is  not  so 
cruel  as  to  be  forgotten." 

The  soldier  still  laughed. 

"The  spirit  of  all  the  goddesses  thrives  in 
you!" 

And  he  touched  her  gently. 

"But  the  gods  may  send  it  to  me  soon  — 
the  great  crimson  death." 

"Then,"  answered  the  little  girl,  "I  can  die 
the  great  death,  too,  and  still  be  with  you  - 
if  you  should  wish !" 

"What!"  laughed  Shijiro,  anew,  "little 
you  —  gentle  Yone  —  in  the  wild  glory  of  the 
conflict,  with  a  plunge  into  the  fires  of  all  the 
hells,  in  the  madness  of  carnage,  with  a  yell 
frozen  on  your  lips?  Shall  little  you  experi 
ence  that  arch  esctasy:  your  death-wound 
spurting  your  own  warm  blood  into  your  own 
face?  Then  out,  out,  out  into  the  eternal 
solitude  and  silence  of  souls  awaiting  other 
reincarnations?  To  that  place  called  Meido? 
Ha  ha,  my  fragile  Yone*,  the  great  red  death  — 
is  not  for  you  —  not  for  perfumed  little  Yon6's. 
It  is  a  man's  death!" 

At  this  she  was  reproved,  but  as  he  always 
reproved  her,  very  gently.     Yet  it  was  won- 


60  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

derful  that  his  gentleness  held  here.  She 
understood  well  her  presumption  in  wishing 
to  die  the  great  death  of  a  man. 

" Pardon,  small  lord,"  she  said  humbly. 
"I  spoke  when  I  had  not  counted  three  —  in 
stead  of  nine." 

He  laughed  happily. 

"  Speak  whatever  comes  to  your  lips.  All  is 
good,  because  it  comes  from  them  —  which  are 
all  good.  But  when  you  speak  of  the  things 
which  are  a  man's,  I  look  at  your  stature  and 
-  laugh !  I  tell  you  what  is  yours  —  little 
Yone*  —  and  what  is  mine!" 

She  tried  to  forget  that  he  was  not  much 
taller  than  she. 

uNo,  forgive  me;  I  must  die  only  the  small, 
white  death  of  women  and  children.  But, 
until  it  comes,  I  shall  be  here  where  you  and 
I  were  happy  together.  And  if  you  die,  still 
caring  for  me,  your  spirit  will  come  and  touch 
me,  as  you  said.  That  much  I  know.  You 
have  said  it !  But  if  you  have  forgotten,  then 
there  will  be  no  touches ;  then  I  will  still  wait 
until  I  die.  It  will  not  be  long." 

" Little  one,"  said  Arisuga,  in  pity,  "we  have 
lived  and  loved  together  here.  All  has  been 


YAMATO   DAMASHII  61 

good.  But  it  is  as  a  splendid  summer  day 
which  one  forgets,  in  the  glow,  the  madness  of 
glory,  the  moment  the  call  comes !  This  we 
did  not  know,  the  madness  of  glory,  and  I  had 
never  thought  to  learn.  But  it  has  come,  and 
it  is  greater  than  all  love.  Should  the  call 
sound  now,  I  would  leave  you  where  you 
stand,  and  go  upon  the  business  of  our 
sovereign.  As  it  is,"  he  laughed,  "we  shall 
once  more  go  homeward  hand  in  hand !" 

And  so  they  did.  But  still  it  was  not  as 
before.  It  never  could  be.  As  he  had  said, 
this  madness  of  glory  had  obscured  all  love. 


TONE 


VI 


THE  war  with  China  got  slowly  into  the  air. 
Troops  were  mobilizing.  The  Guards  were 
being  fitted  with  uniforms  for  a  warmer  climate. 
The  army  was  thrilled  with  that  nameless  thing 
which  speaks  of  action  to  the  soldier.  Maps 
and  plans  of  campaign  grew  over  night.  Nurses 
were  gathered  where  they  could  be  most  easily 
requisitioned.  Plans  for  hospital  and  trans 
portation  service  were  born  and  matured  as 
certainly  now,  as  if  the  army  had  lived  in  an 
atmosphere  of  war  instead  of  peace  for  many 
years.  But  when  the  actual  going  came  near, 
Arisuga  thought  of  Yone.  There  would  be  no 
more  of  that.  And  when  it  was  said,  a  cer 
tain  sadness  came  and  stayed  with  him,  when 
the  glory  dulled  a  little.  For  it  had  been 
sweet.  And  it  might  be  only  once  again. 
Marching  orders  were  imminent. 

So   that,   though   it   was   even,   and  Yone" 

p  65 


66  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

might  not  go  out  in  the  even,  he  found  her  one 
day,  when  the  sadness  came,  and  they  stole 
through  the  house's  rear  to  that  tomb  of  Esas 
in  Shiba,  where  they  had  made  a  seat  of  stone 
and  moss.  They  had  never  before  been  alone 
together  in  the  wood  at  night,  and  Yone"  was 
terrified,  as  a  maid  ought  to  be,  while  Arisuga 
was  brave,  as  a  soldier  should  be. 

Yet,  notwithstanding  these  adverse  circum 
stances,  it  was  there  —  at  the  tomb  of  Esas,  on 
this  night  of  nights  to  Yone"  —  that  they  made 
together  that  song  of  "The  Stork-and-the- 
Moon."  And  it  was  on  this  night,  while  they 
sang  it  (without  the  samisen,  for  Yone*  was  re 
posing  too  snugly  against  one  of  Arisuga  7s  arms 
for  him  to  play,  though  they  had  the  samisen 
with  them),  that  the  watchman  came  with  lan 
tern  and  staff  and  cried  out  that  he  had  heard 
a  song  in  that  place  of  sacred  tombs  —  a  fool 
ish,  worldly  song  —  and  adjured  the  sinners  to 
come  forth  and  be  punished. 

Now  both  were  frightened  suddenly,  and 
Yone  crept  deeply  into  the  arms  of  her  soldier 
for  protection.  And  she  did  not  vacate  her 
place  of  safety  when  the  watchman  had  passed 
on;  Arisuga  prevented  her. 


67 

For  he  had  not  in  the  least  fancied  how  sweet 
that  might  be.  And  her  fancies  had  fallen  short 
of  truth.  And  yet  other  things  passed  there 
at  that  tomb  of  Lord  Esas  which  I  shall  not 
stop  to  tell. 

Later,  perhaps,  in  this  story,  there  may  be 
occasion  to  tell  what  happened  there  at  the 
tomb  of  Lord  Esas  on  the  seat  of  stones  and 
mosses  they  had  made :  the  promises,  —  if 
there  were  any,  —  the  song,  and  all  the  joy  of 
that  night  upon  which  little  Yone  would  have 
to  live  until  Arisuga  came  again  —  for  this  was 
indeed  all  he  left  to  her. 

It  was  a  disgraceful  hour  when  they  stole 
forth.  And  had  the  watchman  seen  them  then, 
the  gods  alone  know  what  the  penalty  would 
have  been.  They  passed  the  walls  safely; 
but  there  was  yet  before  them  the  reentry  to 
the  house  of  Yone*,  which  was  more  terrible. 
Yet  they  were  strangely  happy  in  their  terrors, 
though  Yone  expected,  hoped,  to  be  disowned 
and  driven  from  home,  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of 
the  world.  But  also,  in  that  case,  Arisuga  would 
marry  her.  Chivalry  would  demand  it.  Of  course 
he  had  not  exactly  said  so.  In  order  that  he 
might  have  the  opportunity,  Yone  protested :  — 


68  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"I  do  not  regret  —  not  a  word,  not  a  thing !" 

"No,  it  is  my  fault— " 

"If  they  drive  me  from  home,  outcast  me, 
I  shall  sing  in  the  streets !" 

"You!" 

"Or  go  to  Geisha  street." 

"You!" 

"What,  then,  will  I  do,  lord?" 

"You  will  marry  me  —  a  little  sooner  than  we 
planned,  and  live  with  my  mother  while  I  fight." 

"Yes,"  breathed  Yone,  quite  content  with 
this.  It  was  more  than  she  had  expected. 
Indeed,  she  was  so  filled  with  content  that  it 
was  .all  she  could  say. 

Nevertheless,  though  this  event  had  been 
arranged  there  behind  the  tomb,  under  the  in 
fluence  of  the  terror  of  the  watchman,  yet  its 
consummation  was  put  a  long  time  off,  for  the 
parents  of  each  had  to  be  consulted,  cunningly, 
as  if  it  had  not  at  all  been  arranged.  And  this 
marred  Yone*'s  happiness  a  trifle;  for,  if  mar 
riage  was  anything  like  that  behind  the  tomb, 
it  could  not  come  too  soon.  And,  however 
soon  it  might  come,  it  would  not  be  soon 
enough,  for  soon  enough  was  now,  and  that 
was  passing. 


YON&  69 

Besides,  she  hoped  it  might  happen  before 
his  sacrifice;  for  though  she  would  then  be 
his  widow  and  quite  sure  of  his  spirit,  that 
first  personal  contact  by  the  tomb  of  old  Lord 
Esas  had  been  sweet. 

However,  there  seemed,  happily,  no  way  of 
escape  from  an  outcasting  and  the  consequences 
they  had  fixed  upon,  and  this  grew  upon  them 
more  and  more  as  they  went  homeward,  so  that 
as  they  were  yet  quite  happy  in  it  they  came 
into  the  vicinity  of  Yone^s  home.  Now,  by 
that  time  all  the  details  had  been  arranged: 
Yone  was  to  go  to  Arisuga's  mother,  where  a 
complete  confession  would  be  made.  Then,  on 
the  morrow,  the  consent  of  the  parents  would 
be  asked,  which,  whether  it  were  or  were  not 
obtained,  would  be  the  signal  for  the  wedding 
preparations.  For  in  the  one  case  Yone* 
would  be  the  daughter  of  her  parents,  whose 
consent  would  have  been  obtained,  in  the 
other  of  his  whose  consent  was  sure. 

Then  they  looked  up  to  find  themselves 
almost  in  the  midst  of  a  great  fire  which  their 
absorption  had  kept  them  from  noticing.  And 
it  was  at  once  but  too  plain  that  Yone's  home 
was  in  that  part  of  the  district  already  burned 


70  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

clear.  Of  course  there  were  parents  and  broth 
ers  to  think  of  at  once,  and  in  thought  of  their 
safety  Yone  forgot  the  opportunity  for  her 
outcasting  and  the  hastening  of  her  happiness. 
When  she  remembered,  it  was  too  late. 

She  had  been  pounced  upon  by  her  father, 
and  borne  in  joy  to  the  rendezvous  where  all 
the  brothers  and  sisters,  as  well  as  the  parents 
of  Yone,  were  now  in  prosaic  safety  and  little 
perturbation.  Shijiro  Arisuga  had,  upon  the 
appearance  of  the  father,  ignominiously  disap 
peared  —  which,  indeed,  was  the  best  thing 
which  could  have  happened  for  Yone,  so  far  as 
her  safety  from  scandal  was  concerned,  and  the 
worst  so  far  as  her  wish  for  an  immediate  mar 
riage  was  concerned.  There  was,  now,  not  the 
least  hope  of  an  outcasting.  No  one  had  even 
seen  Shijiro,  it  appeared,  nor  knew  of  their  going 
away  or  coming  back  together. 

"How  did  you  escape,  my  pleasant  daugh 
ter?"  cried  the  happy  father,  embracing  her. 

"I  do  not  know,"  said  Yone",  with  some 
truth,  looking  furtively  about  for  Arisuga. 

"And  fully  dressed?"  asked  the  father  again. 

With  a  sigh  of  disgust,  Yone  answered  again 
that  she  did  not  know. 


71 

"It  was  an  interposition  of  the  gods." 

"Yes,"  sighed  Yone,  in  her  heart,  "I  sup 
pose  it  was  an  interposition  of  the  infernal 
gods." 

For  Shijiro  was  undoubtedly  gone,  not  at 
once  to  return. 

"The  smell  of  fire  has  not  even  passed  upon 
your  garments,"  pursued  the  delighted  parent. 

"It  is  very  strange,"  sighed  the  daughter. 

"The  gods  love  you !"   declared  her  father. 

"I  suppose  so,"  answered  Yone,  indifferently, 
thinking  of  quite  another  escape  and  another 
love. 

It  happened  that  the  next  day  the  Kow- 
shing  was  sunk  and  the  Guards  started  for 
Ping- Yang. 


PING-TANG 


VII 

PING-YANG 

ARISUGA  sang  for  the  Guards,  and  made 
rhymes  and  laughter,  and  they  liked  him  tre 
mendously,  as  big  men  are  inclined  to  like 
little  ones,  until  they  reached  Ping-Yang,  when 
they  liked  him  still  more  for  something  better. 
You  will  remember  how  the  first  assault  of  the 
Japanese  was  met  by  the  Chinese,  who  had  yet 
to  be  taught  defeat.  The  big  Satsuma  color- 
bearer  was  killed,  and  the  flag  fell  in  the  pol 
luting  Chinese  dust.  It  was  little  Arisuga  who 
raised  it  —  to  such  a  shout  as  cost  the  Chinese 
the  hundred  or  so  men  they  could  spare  at 
that  time.  And  he  stayed  out  there,  with  the 
flag,  where  the  Chinese  were,  when  the  rest  re 
tired,  and  taunted  the  enemy  with  polite  epi 
thets,  kept  his  pistol  going,  and  finally  came 
through  without  a  scratch ! 

Thus,  the  smallest  member  of  the  Guards 
had  demonstrated  to  the  greatest,  the  thing 

75 


76  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

which  helped  to  win  their  other  victories :  that 
though  their  enemy  was  not  lacking  in  courage, 
as  they  had  thought,  yet  he  could  neither  ma 
noeuvre  nor  shoot. 

Afterward,  there  was  a  contest  for  the  pic 
turesque  office  of  color-bearer.  Some  of  them 
wanted  Okuma.  And  Arisuga  was  willing, 
of  course.  He  knew  how  impossible  it  was  to 
him  at  his  size.  But  Colonel  Zanzi  said  the 
colors  belonged  to  Arisuga. 

"Men  get  what  they  win  in  the  army  — 
nothing  more,  and  not  less.  Here,  no  honor  goes 
by  favor !  A  man  passes  for  a  man  until  he 
is  proven  otherwise,  no  matter  who  or  what  he 
is,  or  whether  he  be  five  feet  or  six.  In  the 
army  there  are  neither  eta  nor  samurai,  only 
sons  of  the  emperor." 

After  the  peace  of  Shimenoseki  there  was 
dull  barrack  life  for  little  Arisuga,  far  from 
Yon4,  until  he  led  the  allies  in  their  assault 
upon  the  gate  of  the  Hidden  City.  You  will 
remember  that  the  Japanese  were  conceded  the 
advance.  After  the  first  repulse  they  disentan 
gled  Arisuga  from  a  heap  of  Chinese  with  the 
colors  still  upright  in  his  hands.  The  wound  was 
in  his  forehead.  The  great  death  had  been  near. 


PING-YANG  77 

Now  it  happened  that  the  next  day  a  man 
with  a  Japanese  name  was  brought  before 
Colonel  Zanzi  and  desired  to  know  why  it  was 
that  wounded  Japanese  soldiers  were  taken  to 
the  houses  of  the  Chinese  when  there  were 
Japanese  houses  near  where  they  would  be  not 
only  welcome  but  -  Well,  he  had  a  pretty 
daughter,  and  the  Chinese  annoyed  her  by  their 
attentions.  A  Japanese  soldier  in  the  house, 
a  flag  in  the  yard,  and  a  pink  ticket  at  the 
door  would  be  not  only  glory  but  protection. 

"I  see,"  laughed  the  colonel.  "Will  a 
wounded  one  do?" 

The  visitor  thought  he  would  —  if  he  were 
the  young  man  who  had  been  carried  to  the 
house  of  Han-Hai  next  door  to  him,  the  day 
before. 

"Very  good,"  smiled  the  colonel.  "I  ob 
serve  that  we  are  not  only  glorifying  the  em 
peror,  but  assisting  a  countryman  to  humble 
his  Chinese  neighbor.  Very  good !" 

"It  is  not  that,"  said  the  Japanese  in  China. 
"My  daughter  has  seen  him." 

"Oh-h!  Oh-h!     He  will  have  good  care!" 

Without  another  word  the  smiling  command 
ing  officer  wrote  the  order  for  his  transfer. 


78  THE   WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

And  the  next  day  Orojii  Zasshi  was  the 
proudest  Japanese  in  China.  For  the  imperial 
sun-flag  waved  over  his  roof;  the  pink  ticket, 
to  indicate  that  a  soldier  was  quartered  there, 
was  tacked  to  his  door-post;  and  within,  in 
the  most  sumptuous  room  the  house  afforded, 
lay  Shijiro  Arisuga,  color-bearer. 


DREAM-OF-A-STAK 


VIII 

DREAM-OF-A-STAR 

WHEN  Arisuga  saw  the  face  of  "Hoshi-no- 
Yume","  some  days  later  —  and  this  "Dream- 
of-a-Star,"  as  he  at  once  called  her,  was  well 
enough  worth  seeing  —  he  said  first :  - 

"  It  is  not  like  what  I  thought  it,  angel." 

Referring,  of  course,  to  the  great  red  death, 
which  he  thought  he  had  suffered  —  and  what 
had  necessarily  followed. 

"No,"  answered  Hoshiko,  comfortingly,  re 
membering  what  the  surgeon  had  said,  that 
when  he  came  out  of  his  delirium  he  would 
probably  be  a  bit  queer. 

"I  suppose,  after  all,  that  the  earth-heavens 
are  much  like  the  earth." 

"Yes,"  from  Miss  Star-Dream. 

"I  don't  think  you  understand  me,  since 
you  answer  only  yes  and  no  ?  " 

"I  understand  your  words  perfectly.  I  am 
Japanese  !"  answered  the  lips  of  Iloshiko,  while 
they  slowly  smiled.  "But  your  thought - 

o  81 


82  THE  WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"How  lucky!  For,  I  suppose  here  all 
peoples  are  mixed." 

"Yes.  There  are  all  sorts:  Russians,  Ger 
mans,  Americans,  Frenchmen  - 

She  was  thinking  of  the  allies. 

"It  looks  like  Japan." 

This  was  the  interior  which  he  was  seeing. 

"But  you  think  it  is  China?" 

"Yes !  Out  there  it  is  precisely  like  the  place 
where  we  fought." 

"Yes,"  said  puzzled  Hoshiko. 

"I  suppose  the  gods  surround  us  in  the 
heavens  with  the  things  which  have  pleased  us 
most  on  earth." 

Something  made  him  look  at  the  girl  who 
flitted  near,  and  the  same  thing  made 
him  connect  her  with  this  state  of  celestial 
bliss. 

But  he  sighed  and  turned  from  her.  In  the 
heavens,  of  course,  she  was  incorporeal,  and, 
while  patent  to  the  eyes,  would  fail  like  the  air 
itself  to  the  touch. 

He  looked  through  the  window,  then,  at  the 
Forbidden  City. 

"But  there  is  no  fighting  here  now,"  ven 
tured  the  girl. 


DREAM-OF-A-STAR  83 

"  Naturally,"  agreed  the  soldier. 

"The  Forbidden  City  is  taken." 

"I  am  glad  to  hear  it.  How  long  have  you 
been  here?" 

"About  thirteen  years." 

"You  couldn't  have  been  more  than  three 
or  four  when  you  died !  I  don't  understand." 

But,  now,  Hoshiko  at  last  did.  And  she 
laughed. 

"Excuse  my  levity,"  she  said.  "I  am  not 
dead,  and  you  are  not.  I  am  not  an  angel,  and 
this  is  not  a  heaven !" 

"Oh!"  said  Arisuga;  and  then,  "All  right," 
as  if  it  were  a  thing  to  be  endured.  He  ended 
by  also  laughing.  "But  you  must  excuse  the 
mistake.  It  seems  a  good  deal  like  a  heaven, 
and  you  more  like  an  angel." 

Still,  as  he  looked  about,  and  at  the  girl, 
he  was  not  sure.  That  is  what  they  were  likely 
to  tell  a  sick  man. 

"Might  I  touch  you?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  yes!"  cried  the  girl,  with  a  pleasure 
which  challenged  his  attention.  She  put  her 
self  within  his  reach. 

"It  is  not  a  heaven,"  he  agreed,  when  he  had 
passed  his  hand  along  an  exquisite  arm. 


84  THE   WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

"I  am  honorably  glad  that  you  are  not  dead," 
breathed  the  girl,  bravely.  "Are  not  you?" 

And  every  little  atom  of  her  showed  that  she 
was  glad  and  begged  that  he  might  be.  Though 
the  mists  were  still  in  the  brain  of  Shijiro 
Arisuga,  he  could  not  help  knowing  both  of  these 
things:  her  innocence  had  uncovered  them  so 
completely.  For  a  moment  he  studied  her. 
Then  he  answered  a  tardy  yes  to  her  question. 

"For  such  as  you  it  is  good  to  live  —  yes  — 
and-  The  soldier  stopped  to  sigh.  "Good 
for  others  to  live  near  you  for  the  little  while." 

"Fora  little  while,  lord?" 

She  thought  it  the  mere  hyperbole  of  their 
race. 

"Oh,  you  shall  be  old,  old,  old,  and  beautiful, 
with  long  white  hair  and  perhaps  a  beard, 
and  all  the  earth  shall  worship  your  piety  - 

Arisuga  laughed  and  caught  a  hand  to  stop  her. 

"Lord,"  she  went  on,  "most  vast  lord,  I 
will  make  you.  Yes !  I  have  thus  far  made 
it  to  be.  When  they  brought  you  they  said 
you  would  die.  So  said  my  father  and  mother. 
But  I—" 

She  turned  and  summoned  her  maid  with 
fierce  irrelevance. 


DREAM-OF-A-STAR  85 

"Isonna,  come  here!" 

The  maid  hastened  from  the  next  room, 
where,  it  is  almost  certain,  she  had  lain  with  her 
ear  to  the  fusuma,  and  then  Hoshiko's  myste 
rious  purpose  appeared. 

"But  I  —  Isonna  and  me  —  this  is  Isonna, 
my  ugly  maid  —  Isonna  and  me  prayed  for 
you  —  wept  for  you ;  you  were  so  beautiful 
and  bloody.  And  Benten  —  see,  I  have  Ben  ten 
always  near !  Benten  loves  the  tears  of  sym 
pathy,  and  to  her  we  prayed,  so  — " 

"I  owe  you  and  Isonna  my  life,"  laughed  the 
soldier. 

"No,  Benten,"  whispered  the  girl,  now 
answering  his  laugh  with  a  smile.  "And  she 
will  grant  other  prayers  of  ours  —  Isonna  and 
me  —  will  she  not,  Isonna,  you  little  beast  ? 
Why  do  you  not  speak?" 

Isonna  corroborated  her  mistress  by  a  deep 
prostration. 

"And  so  we  have  asked  for  long  life  for  you, 
very  long,  until  the  pebbles  grow  to  boulders 
and  the  moss  grows  to  your  shoulders  — " 

Arisuga  laughed,  in  frank  joy  of  her. 

"And  suppose,  you  who  are  so  powerful  with 
the  goddess  of  beauty  —  for  which  I  do  not 


86  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

blame  the  goddess  —  suppose  I  have  sworn  to 
die  the  great  death,  to  release  my  father's 
soul  from  the  Meido  so  that  he  can  be  born 
again,  and  for  the  glory  of  the  emperor  ?  " 

"Oh!  "gasped  the  girl. 

The  soldier  went  on. 

" — what  will  the  other  gods  think  of  me,  sav 
ing  Benten,  if  I  stop  here  and  forget  to  die  be 
cause  a  woman  has  hands,  a  voice,  and  eyes?  " 

"No,  no!"  cried  Isonna,  in  sudden  strange 
anguish. 

Then  she  prostrated  herself  in  abjection. 

Arisuga  rose  on  his  elbow  to  look  at  her. 

"What  have  I  said  to  cause  such  sorrow?" 
he  wondered.  "Let  me  see.  It  was  about 
your  hands  and  voice  and  eyes." 

"Yes !"   cried  mistress  and  maid  together. 

But  it  was  the  maid  who  went  on  :— 

"And  you  must  not,  mighty  lord.  You 
must  not  find  any  beauty  in  my  mistress's 
eyes  and  hands  and  voice.  None  anywhere. 
It  is  evil  for  both  you  and  her ! " 

"Who  said  I  found  any  beauty  there?" 
smiled  Arisuga,  languidly. 

"There  is  a  secret,  lord — "  the  maid  went 
on  in  a  frenzy. 


DREAM-OF-A-STAR  87 

But  Star-Dream,  suddenly  grasping  the 
place  of  her  heart  with  both  hands,  cried  out 
to  the  maid,  as  if  she  were  desperately 
wounded : — 

"Go,  go,  go,  little  foul  beast !  What  do  you 
do  here  ?  Who  called  you  ?  Go  ! " 

The  maid  disappeared  like  a  spirit.  Star- 
Dream  found  herself  upon  her  feet,  still  gasping 
with  ecstasy  and  terror  together.  Then  she  at 
last  turned  slowly  toward  the  bed  and  smiled 
a  sick  mechanical  smile. 

"Lord,  you  said,"  she  prompted.  "Say  on. 
Do  not  listen  —  do  not  observe  the  ugly  Isonna. 
She  has  a  trouble  of  the  head." 

Hoshiko  drooped  her  own  in  some  sort  of 
gentle  guilt. 

"Ah,  but  I  displeased  you  also,"  said  Arisuga. 

"Lord  —  I  —  no.  I  have  a  distemper.  In 
it  I  am  harsh  to  Isonna.  That  is  what  she  is 
for.  That  is  why  my  father  keeps  her.  That 
she  may  bear  my  distemper.  Presently  I  will 
go  and  put  my  arms  about  her,  so,  and  all  will 
be  well!" 

She  illustrated  with  her  own  person. 

"So?"  asked  the  soldier,  laughing;  "cer 
tainly  all  will  be  well!"  and  she  came  with 


88  THE  WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

another  laugh  and  knelt  at  his  bed.  She 
touched  him.  She  chattered  on  helplessly. 

"  Truly,  all  will  be  well.  She  loves  me, 
wicked  as  I  am  to  her,  and  with  a  touch  I  can 
win  her!" 

"Yes!"  he  agreed.  "Or  any  one,  I  should 
fancy!" 

Thus,  at  least,  she  had  cunningly  won  him 
from  his  wonder  at  the  scene  he  had  just  wit 
nessed,  if  she  had  not  won  all  else  she  had 
hoped  for. 

"May  I  ask  a  question?"  said  the  girl. 

"A  hundred,"  said  Shijiro. 

"Lord,  you  said  —  you  called  me — " 

"Yes,"  laughed  Arisuga.  "The  eyes,  the 
hands,  the  lips  — 

"I  am  not  beautiful — " 

"I  did  not  say  so." 

"My  hands  are  not — " 

She  held  them  out  that  he  might  see  that 
they  were  not.  The  soldier  examined  them  and 
then  said :  — 

"No,  the  maid  was  right.  I  find  no  beauty 
there." 

"And  my  eyes  —  they  are  only  beast's 
eyes  — " 


DREAM-OF-A-STAR  89 

"Let  me  see,"  begged  the  soldier. 

She  came  closer,  and  seriously  opened  them 
upon  him.  It  was  very  hard  for  Shijiro  look 
ing  into  them  to  nod  his  assent  that  they  were 
beast's  eyes. 

"Then  the  question  is/7  said  the  girl,  with 
innocent  mirth,  "why,  if  I  am  not  beautiful, 
if  nothing  about  me  is,  why  did  you  do  so?" 

"Do  what?"  demanded  the  soldier,  with  a 
pretence  of  savagery. 

"Look  so  into  my  eyes,  touch  so  my  hands, 
listen  so  to  my  miserable  voice?" 

"I  supposed  that  I  was  in  a  heaven,  and  that 
you  were  an  —  attendant,"  said  Arisuga. 

"But  after  you  knew  that  you  were  not  in  a 
heaven?" 

The  soldier  gave  up  with  a  laugh. 

"I  see  that  we  shall  be  very  good  friends," 
he  said.  They  laughed  together. 

"Lord,"  she  said,  "I  do  not  know  whether 
you  speak  true!" 

"I,"  said  the  soldier,  "have  the  impression 
that  I  have  lied  to  you  about  you." 

"Shaka!"  breathed  the  girl,  between  laugh 
ter  and  fear. 

"Did  you  wish  it  —  what  I  did  — said?" 


90  THE   WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

"Lord,"  confessed  the  girl,  "I  wish  to  be 
as  beautiful  as  the  sun-goddess,  so  that  you 
must  —  do  —  say  — ! " 

She  crept  closer.  It  was  as  if  she  caressed 
the  soldier. 


ISONNA 


IX 

ISONNA 

ON  another  day  Hoshiko  asked :  — 

"Lord,  must  it  be  soon  —  now  —  that  you 
die?" 

"Now,"  he  said,  with  a  pretence  of  severity. 

"Is  the  day  fixed?" 

"Yes.  Am  I  to  wait  here  because  your  eyes 
are  not  exactly  a  beast's,  while  my  father  lan 
guishes  in  the  Meido?" 

"Yea,  lord,  if  you  are  hap  —  happy.  For 
the  spirits  of  our  augustnesses,  no  matter  where 
they  are,  even  in  the  suffering  of  the  hells,  are 
not  sad  while  they  make  us  happy." 

"In  what  book  did  you  learn  that?"  de 
manded  the  soldier. 

"In  the  Bushido,"  lied  the  girl,  seriously. 

"Then  I  have  not  read  the  commandments 
of  the  Bushido  with  sufficient  care.  I  must  do 
it  all  over.  I  am  glad  that  there  is  such  a  doc 
trine.  One  may  keep  to  a  holy  purpose,  but 

93 


94  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

need  not  hasten   it.    And  to-day    I    like   to 
linger  from  the  red  death;  I  like  it  well !" 

"  Yes,  lord,  that  is  a  filial  duty.     To  die  for  - 
for  —  the  repose  of  your  father's  soul.     But 
there  is  no  need  of — haste?" 

"No,"  said  the  disgraceful  young  soldier, 
" there  is  no  need  of  haste." 

She  laughed  and  touched  his  face  —  where 
he  caught  and  held  her  hand. 

"Perhaps,  many  many  years?" 

"Perhaps,"  said  Arisuga. 

"Until  you  are  mi  —  married?" 

"Perhaps  until  I  am  married." 

"Beautiful !"  cried  the  girl. 

"And  who  would  you  have  me  marry?" 

"Isonna!"  laughed  Hoshiko,  "if  you  were 
not  so  great,  lord.  Oh,  she  is  most  sweet  to 
men !  Often  I  have  wondered  that  men  do 
not  marry  her!  Isonna!" 

Again  the  girl  plunged  from  the  next  room. 

"Isonna,"  said  her  mistress,  "ugly  little 
beast,  you  are  to  marry  the  lord  soldier  when 
he  is  a  trifle  better." 

Isonna  forgot  her  manners  in  the  violence 
of  another  amazement.  Arisuga  shouted  with 
happy  laughter. 


ISONNA  95 

"Vast  lord,"  wailed  the  maid,  as  if  she 
believed  it  all,  "  there  is  the  same  reason  in  me 
as  in  my  mistress,  that  — " 

"Sh!" 

Hoshiko  put  her  two  hands  violently  upon 
the  garrulous  mouth  of  the  servant. 

"You  little  beast!  Is  not  once  enough?  I 
dislike  to  kill  you.  But  I  suppose  I  must !" 

When  all  was  well  again  she  turned  to 
Arisuga :  - 

"Then  you  will  need  a  servant  —  and  I  am 
very  industrious,  am  I  not,  Isonna?" 

Isonna  said  nothing.    This  seemed  safest. 

"Is  she  industrious,  Isonna?"  asked  the 
mystified  young  soldier.  "We  will  have  no 
servants  who  are  not  industrious!" 

"No,"  said  the  frightened  maid  to  him,  and 
"Yes"  to  her  when  she  had  looked,  first,  the 
way  of  her  mistress,  then  the  way  of  the  soldier. 

"Do  I  not  curl  the  futons,  dress  my  hair,  fill 
my  father's  pipe,  clean  the  sand  out  of  his 
sandals,  mend  his  bed-netting,  tie  his  girdle, 
cook  his  rice?" 

Isonna  said  yes. 

"I  am  convinced,"  laughed  the  soldier. 
"  When  I  marry  Isonna  you  shall  serve  us." 


96  THE   WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"Go,"  said  the  girl  to  the  maid,  "and  be 
ready  when  the  lord  commander  wishes." 

And  when  she  was  gone  the  young  soldier 
and  the  girl  laughed  again  together. 

"Almost,"  said  the  girl,  "she  lost  me  my 
place  in  your  household." 

And  one  could  not  be  certain  from  her 
words  that  she  was  not  serious. 

The  soldier  had  again  the  impression  that 
she  had  barely  prevented  some  momentous 
disclosure.  It  gave  his  gayety  pause  and  his 
coquetry  caution. 

"Then  I  am  not  in  a  heaven,"  said  he, 
"  and  —  you  are  not  a  heavenly  person?" 

The  girl  dropped  to  her  knees  beside  him 
and  asked :  — 

"I  wish  I  might  make  this  a  heaven  to  you, 
and  that  I  might  seem  —  truly  —  like  —  a 
heavenly  —  person !" 

"I  never  knew  one  on  earth  who  seemed 
more  like  one  !  Be  content. " 

"Alas !  that  is  only  because  you  have  been 
ill  and  I  have  been  kind  to  you?" 

"You  are  very  pleasant  —  very  pleasant!" 
said  Arisuga,  setting  the  current  of  desire  away 
from  the  peril  of  her.  "  What  have  you  been 


ISONNA  97 

doing  with  me  all  the  while  I  have  been  here?" 

Nevertheless,  and  notwithstanding  his  re 
treat  from  sentiment,  the  wounded  soldier 
possessed  himself  of  one  of  Hoshiko's  hands — 
quite  by  an  unconscious  act  of  fellowship.  But 
one  was  not  enough;  he  took  the  other.  As 
he  did  it,  he  remembered  and  smiled  because 
his  hands  and  his  will  were  at  such  variance. 

The  Lady  Hoshi  did  not  stay  him.  Indeed, 
she  had  always  liked  the  stories  of  those  bandits 
in  the  mountains,  who  took  pretty  girls  and 
were  never  heard  of  again. 

But  she  had  to  get  away  just  then,  much  to 
her  regret,  because,  out  of  her  innocent  honesty, 
she  was  not  prepared  to  answer  the  question  he 
had  asked  her  —  What  had  she  been  doing 
with  him  during  the  period  of  his  delirious 
unconsciousness  ?  And  he  repeated  it ! 

Now  to  call  one  a  pleasant  person  is 
about  as  far  as  a  Japanese  lover  ordinarily 
goes.  But  Hoshiko  was  disappointed  with  it. 
What  had  gone  before  promised  more. 

In  her  disappointment,  her  humor  became 
as  testy  as  it  was  possible  for  her  humor  to 
become,  which  was,  after  all,  not  very  testy. 
And  so  it  remained  for  the  day. 


THE   TASK   OF   JIZO 


X 

THE  TASK  OF  JIZO 

"WHY  didn't  he  take  me?"  she  demanded 
savagely  of  Isonna  the  maid  that  night  as  she 
was  putting  her  mistress  to  bed  in  the  adjoin 
ing  room.  "And  quickly!  Like  that!  I 
would!"  She  clapped  her  hands  —  and  then 
said :  "Sh  !  Do  you  think  he  heard  that?" 

The  maid  reassured  her. 

"But  why  is  a  man  satisfied  with  a  hand  — 
even  two  —  when  by  a  strong  arm  he  might 
have  -  "  she  stopped  to  sigh  and  to  look  into 
the  round  mirror  which  the  maid  was  holding 
up  to  her  — "all!" 

"All  of  what?"   asked  the  astonished  maid. 

"Me!    This." 

"Oh!"  said  the  maid. 

"If  a  man  calls  a  girl  an  angel  when  he  thinks 
he  is  in  heaven,  he  has  no  business  to  call  her 
only  -  '  she  stopped  and  sniffed  disdainfully 
at  the  word  —  " 'pleasant  when  he  finds  he  is 
not." 

101 


102  THE   WAY   OF   THE    GODS 

"What  would  you,  then,  have  him  to  call 
you  on  earth?"  questioned  the  puzzled  maid. 

"Angel  still." 

"  Permit  him  a  little  time,  mistress." 

"Time!  Time!  What  do  you  call  time, 
you  ignorant  one  ?  It  was  fifteen  minutes ! 
Yes !  We  had  been  talking  fifteen  minutes 
when  he  said  I  was  a  pleasant  person !  After 
saying  I  was  an  angel !" 

"Oh!"  said  Isonna  —  which  Hoshiko  took 
for  reproof. 

"I  have  known  him  two  weeks !" 

"Yes,"  agreed  the  maid. 

"And  if  you  speak  —  if  you  suggest  again, 
that  which  twice  nearly  escaped  your  lips,  I 
will  kill  you.  One  night  you  will  lie  down,  and, 
into  your  horrid,  tattling  mouth,  I  will  pour, 
as  you  sleep,  a  something  which  will  prevent 
you  from  ever  rising.  I  have  it  always 
ready  for  you." 

"But,  your  father?"  whined  Isonna. 

"I,  not  my  father,  am  speaking  now !" 

"I  will  be  silent,"  agreed  the  maid. 

"What  is  the  use  to  take  the  trouble  to  tell 
him?  Soon  he  will  go  and  forget  both  us  and 
that  —  what  is  the  use  ?" 


THE   TASK   OF   JIZO  103 

"I  will  be  silent,"  said  the  maid,  again.  "I 
do  not  wish  to  die." 

"And  then  —  0  Jizo,  punish  him!"  She 
broke  off  and  addressed  another  of  her  god 
desses.  "And  then  he  had  the  unparalleled 
audacity  to  ask  me  what  I  had  been  doing 
with  him  all  the  while  he  has  been  here !  After 
he  had  said  angel  repeatedly !  0  Jizo,  punish 
him!" 

"Well,  well,"  comforted  the  maid,  "why  did 
you  not  inform  him?  Surely  that  was  not 
difficult!" 

"Oh !  it  was  not,  eh?  Well,  you  blind  little 
beast,  do  you  know  what  I  have  been  doing?" 

"You  have  recovered  him  from  his  illness 
with  the  utmost  tenderness  and  beauty,"  said 
the  maid. 

"Oh,  you  little  fool !"  cried  her  mistress,  first 
striking  her,  then  embracing  her;  "I  have  been 
falling  in  love  with  him.  It  happened  that 
day  they  carried  him  into  the  house  of  Han- 
Hai,  where  live  three  daughters,  all  unmarried. 
You  saw  it ;  you  were  present !  Do  you  not 
remember  how  beautiful  and  bloody  he  was? 
His  eyes  were  closed,  the  sun  shone  in  his  face, 
and  that  was  pale  with  here  and  here  the 


104  THE   WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

windings  of  a  bandage,  like  an  aureole.  Oh, 
how  we  both  wept !  He  was  so  young ;  and 
we  thought  that  we  could  heal  him  with  great 
care !  We  wept.  My  father  did  the  one  thing 
which  would  stop  our  tears  —  brought  him 
here ! " 

"Yes  —  yes  !"  agreed  Isonna. 

"Now!    Shall  I  tell  him?" 

"Oh,  no,  Lady  Hoshi,  no !  That  is  a  dread 
ful  thing  to  do,"  sighed  the  maid. 

"It  is  not  dreadful.     It  is  beautiful." 

"But,  dear,  dear  mistress,  you  must  not 
love  a  man.  That  is  what  your  father  pays 
me  to  prevent!" 

"Well,  you  haven't  prevented  it.  And  I 
shall  tell  my  father,  and  he,  also,  will  kill  you 
and  get  me  some  one  who  is  more  useful. 
That  is  two  killings  for  you ! " 

"But  I  did  not  know,  mistress!  Perhaps  I 
do  not  know  love." 

"You  do  not,  Isonna.  For  it  has  been  right 
under  your  nose  these  two  weeks.  After  all, 
I  will  not  tell  my  father.  For  he  might  give 
me  a  maid  who  would  not  be  as  pretty  as  you," 
and  she  hugged  Isonna,  who  was  not  pretty  at 
all.  "And  in  exchange  for  my  mercy  you 


THE   TASK   OF   JIZO  105 

must  not  be  odious,  but  recognize  that  it  is 
too  late.     Is  it  a  bargain?" 

Well,  any  bargain  the  lovely  Hoshi  might 
propose  to  the  plain  Isonna  would  meet  with 
her  approval,  though  it  should  mean  her  death 
the  next  instant,  and  so  this  one  was  approved. 


ANGEL   OF   THE  EARTH-HEAVEN 


XI 

ANGEL  OF   THE  EARTH-HEAVEN 

Now,  the  next  day,  Arisuga,  laughing, 
greeted  her  with  that  very  word  —  "  angel7' ! 
Perhaps  he  did  hear  a  bit  of  their  talk.  For 
the  walls  between  them  were  very  thin.  This 
was  the  way  of  it :  He  clapped  his  hands  so  early 
in  the  morning  that  he  was  amazed  at  the  de 
spatch  with  which  she  arrived.  But  we  are  not. 
For  we  know  that  she  was  waiting  just  outside 
of  his  screens  to  be  called.  She  meant  to  dis 
semble  and  pretend  that  she  was  at  a  distance. 
But  you  can  fancy  how  instantly  she  forgot 
that  when  he  called :  — 

"Angel!  Angel  of  my  earth-heaven!" 
Though  there  are  no  angels  in  the  Japanese 
heavens. 

You  have  seen  that,  in  her  presence,  he  had 
forgotten  his  caution  !  Observe,  now,  that  he 
did  likewise  in  her  absence !  What  end  but 
one  could  there  be  to  such  recklessness  ! 

109 


110  THE  WAY  OF  THE   GODS 

" Stand  there!    I  want  to  look  at  you!" 
he  cried  when  she  came.     For  the  light  of  the 
morning  was  in  her  face  —  and  the  light  of 
love,   too !    "By  your  Jizo,"   he   said,   then, 
"I  am  glad  you  are  not  an  angel! 
"  Cherry  blooms  are  very  pink, 
But  not  so  pink  as  you  are ! " 

he  sang,  laughing,  and  her  heart  was  so  choked 
with  ecstasy  that  she  had  to  put  both  hands 
to  her  face  and  run  from  the  room  hearing 
him  still  call  "Angel"  after  her. 

"0  Benten,"  she  cried  to  the  goddess  of 
beauty  in  her  room,  "that  is  different !  He  is 
not  careful  now  —  he  is  awake  to-day !  We  must 
beware  of  him!  There  is  danger!" 

And  at  once  she  returned  —  with  the  water 
for  his  bath ! 

For,  that  was  always  her  way:  when  he 
would  say  something  to  make  her  heart  leap 
into  her  mouth,  to  fly  from  him  in  the  direst 
panic,  suborn  the  goddess,  then  hasten  back  to 
have  it  happen  again. 

"A  heart  is  a  strange  thing,"  she  laughed 
to  him.  "Sometimes  it  is  here  (at  the  proper 
place  for  it),  sometimes  here  (in  her  throat), 
and  sometimes  here  (in  her  sandals)." 


ANGEL   OF   THE   EARTH-HEAVEN        111 

"And  sometimes/'  laughed  the  young  sol 
dier,  "  one's  heart,  which  should  be  here  (in  his 
own  bosom),  is  there  (in  hers)." 

"And  again,"  she  rioted  with  him,  "one's 
heart,  which  was  here  (in  herself),  is  gone  — 
gone  —  utterly  gone  - 

"That  is  quite  proper,"  the  soldier  said. 
"For  if  you  kept  your  own,  you  would  have 
two  and  I  none!" 

"It  is  trying  to  get  out !"  she  cried  in  mock 
alarm,  holding  it  in. 

"Let  it  come!" 

But,  just  then,  they  heard  the  sigh  of  a 
moving  screen,  and  the  acid  face  of  Hoshiko's 
mother  looked  in.  She  said  nothing,  only  let 
her  eyes  rove  from  face  to  face.  But  that  was 
very  cooling.  She  closed  the  shoji  and  went 
away  —  apparently. 

Now,  for  the  benefit  of  her  mother,  whom 
she  knew  to  be  still  behind  the  fusuma, 
Hoshiko  tried  to  look  very  severe.  She  had 
taken  the  poppies  from  behind  her  ear  and 
had  pinned  a  napkin  about  her  hair,  and  turned 
up  the  sleeves  of  her  kimono,  making  herself 
all  the  lovelier  as  she  very  well  knew  in  this 
fashion  of  a  nurse. 


112  THE  WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"You  are  to  wash  your  hands  in  this  cold 
water  to  refresh  you.  Then  I  will  take  it 
away  and  bring  you  other  water  for  your  face." 

But,  in  the  end,  she  washed  his  hands  for 
him,  and  his  face,  too,  amid  a  great  deal  of 
laughter  and  splashing. 

"And  now,"  he  said,  "I  will  take  e very- 
advantage  of  my  defenceless  enemy.  I  will 
make  her  give  me  my  breakfast." 

Though  she  demurred,  Hoshiko  was  quite 
mad  to  do  it. 

"Beware!"  she  whispered,  as  she  let  a 
persimmon  slip  from  between  her  chopsticks 
into  his  mouth.  "In  the  East,  walls  have 
not  only  ears  but  eyes!" 

"And  no  conscience !" 

"What  would  you?" 

She  hoped  that  he  might  desire  walls  without 
senses,  where  they  might  be  fearlessly  alone. 

"Another  persimmon!"   he  laughed. 

"No,"  she  pouted,  for  his  punishment, 
"nothing  but  the  rice." 

"Not  all  the  hard  hearts,"  he  sighed,  "are 
behind  the  walls!" 

Then  she  gave  him  the  most  luscious  of  the 
persimmons. 


ANGEL  OF   THE   EARTH-HEAVEN        113 

"You  haven't  told  me  yet,"  he  insisted, 
"what  I  did  and  what  you  did  while  I  was 
unconscious.  That  is  always  interesting." 

She  filled  his  mouth  with  rice. 

"But  what  did  you  do  and  what  did  I  do?" 

It  came  through  the  rice. 

"Please  drink,"  she  said. 

"What  did  you  do,  what  did  I  do?"  he 
sputtered. 

"Pardon  me  while  I  wipe  your  mouth." 

"But  what— " 

"Nothing.     I  did  nothing,  you  did  nothing." 

"It  must  have  been  very  dull  for  you," 
sighed  the  defeated  soldier. 

"  Jizo  -  "  she  was  praying  to  the  goddess  at 
her  small  shrine  that  night  —  "I  am  going  to 
conceal  and  lie !  I  pray  you  to  intercede  with 
the  Lord  Shaka  for  my  pardon.  He  loves 
me  —  and  he  must  not  know.  It  is  for  hap 
piness,  Jizo.  His  happiness,  do  you  under 
stand,  dear  Jizo?" 

She  cried  out  savagely  in  her  further  con 
fidences  to  Jizo  that  night,  when  she  was 
ready  for  bed. 

"I  was  very  busy  —  yes,  very  busy  —  falling 
in  love  with  him !  And  you  must  intercede 


114  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

with  Shaka  for  my  forgiveness.  It  was  a  lie. 
But  could  I  tell  him  that  I  was  busy  falling 
in  love  with  him?" 

The  maid  had  come  in  to  put  her  to  bed. 

"Strange  prayers !"  she  said. 

The  mistress  turned,  intending  to  rebuke  her. 
But  she  laughed. 

"Come  here  and  stop  that  laughing.  He  will 
hear!" 

"Mistress,  I  did  not  laugh." 

"Come  here!" 

When  the  maid  was  abject  before  her  she 
said :  - 

"Why  do  you  stare?" 

"At  the  joy." 

"Where?" 

As  if  it  were  a  symptom  of  disease. 

"In  the  face." 

"I  have  a  trouble  of  the  heart.  Feel !  That 
is  why !" 

"Yes!"  said  the  maid,  pretending  terror. 

"It  will  kill  me!" 

"Yes!" 

"It  will  not!" 

"No!" 

They  fell,  laughing,  together,  to  the  floor. 


ANGEL   OF   THE   EARTH-HEAVEN        115 

"He  does  love  me  !" 

"I  know  that  much." 

"But  he  does  not  know  it  —  yet." 

They  laughed  again. 

"It  WAS  for  his  happiness !" 

"Certainly!" 

"Not  mine!" 

"  No ! " 

"He  shall  be  told  that  he  loves  me!" 

She  shook  her  fist  at  her  favorite  deity, 
sitting  unruffled  in  her  shrine. 

"Benten!    You  shall  let  him  know!" 

"The  goddess  is  too  decorous  for  that," 
chided  the  maid.  "The  only  woman  who  tells 
a  man  that  she  loves  him  — 

"Is  me!"  cried  her  mistress  to  the  shocked 
maid. 

"  Aie ! "  wailed  the  maid.  "There  is  a  kind  of 
woman  who  does  that,  but  she  is  not  the  lady 
Hoshi—  » 

"Oh,  silence!"  laughed  the  girl.  "It  would 
not  take  me  a  moment  to  tell  him,  if  it  were  not 
for  what  he  might  think!  And,  perhaps,  he 
is  not  wise  and  will  not  know  enough  wisdom 
to  think  that!" 

"All  men  think  that!"  said  Isonna. 


116  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"But,  how  can  they,"  argued  Hoshiko,  "if 
they  are  not  taught?  How  can  he  if  I  do 
not  teach  him?" 

"It  is  born  in  them!" 

"But  how  do  you  know?" 

"I  have  studied,"  said  the  maid. 

"Well,  at  all  events,  it  was  not  that  for  which 
I  petitioned  the  goddess :  to  tell  him  —  that  I 
loved  him,  you  ignorant  little  animal.  I  asked 
her  to  tell  him  that  he  loved  me !" 

"Oh !"  cried  the  maid,  kowtowing.  "I  mis 
understood." 

"Now  go  to  bed,  you  little  scandal-monger !" 

Isonna  started.    Her  mistress  recalled  her. 

"And  —  and,  if  there  is  a  way  of  letting  him 
know  that  he  - 

"Yes,"  answered  the  maid,  understandingly. 

"And  as  to  letting  him  know  that  I  love 
him  —  " 

"Yes?" 

"Do  you  think  that  necessary?" 

"I  do  not  know  the  ways  of  love,"  confessed 
Isonna. 

"You  are  a  little  beast,"  said  her  mistress. 
"That  can  wait  —  if  he  once  knows  that  he 
loves  me.  At  all  events  it  is  too  dangerous. 
Go  to  bed,  wicked  one!" 


IMPEETINENT   ISONNA 


XII 

IMPERTINENT  ISONNA 

BUT  the  next  day  trouble,  though  not  exactly 
of  the  heart,  did  arrive.  It  was  one  of  Arisuga's 
days  of  retreat  from  Hoshiko.  He  asked  her 
why  she  lived  there  —  in  China  —  when  she 
might  live  in  Japan,  where  she  belonged. 

She  answered  him  that  her  father  had  come 
there  many  years  before,  when  she  was  a  child. 

"I  will  ask  him  the  reason  if  you  wish." 

"No,  no,  no!"  laughed  Arisuga.  "What 
does  it  matter,  my  dear  child?  " 

She  ran  away  from  him  again.  And  all 
that  day  she  kept  repeating:  — 

" '  My  dear  child '!    I  am  as  tall  as"  he ! " 

And  at  night,  again,  while  the  maid  was  un 
dressing  her,  it  was  that  still. 

"Now  he  shall  never  know  who  —  what  I 
am.  For  I  am  beautiful.  The  mirror  says 
so.  As  beautiful  as  if  I  were  not  —  what  I  am. 
Look,  look  and  tell  me!" 

119 


120  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

This  the  maid,  for  the  hundredth  time  since 
he  had  come,  did. 

"You  are,  indeed,  beautiful,  dear  mistress, 
yet,  nevertheless,  it  is  your  duty  to  tell  him! 
Otherwise  he  might  wish  to  marry  you.  Al 
ready  he  loves  you." 

"I  will  not !  And  if  you  do,  I  will  kill  you !" 
threatened  Hoshiko.  "I  will  have  these  few 
days  of  heaven.  He  will  go  and  not  think  of 
me  again.  He  will  never  know.  He  will  not 
have  been  contaminated.  But  I  will  have  the 
few  days  in  heaven!  To  him  I  am  only  a 
child." 

And  she  fell  to  the  floor  and  sobbed  for  an 
hour,  during  which  the  maid  lay  like  a  graven 
image  at  her  side.  Then  she  sat  up  and  asked: 

"Now  you  don't  blame  me,  do  you?" 

"No." 

"Anyhow,  he  will  go  as  soon  as  possible." 

"No,  he  will  not,"  said  the  impertinent 
Isonna. 

"He  will!  You  know  that  he  will!  Say 
that  he  will!" 

But  the  maid  knew  better. 

"That  is  what  men  always  do  when  they 
find  out." 


IMPERTINENT   ISONNA  121 

"He  will  not,"  said  Isonna. 

"You  are  very  impertinent!"  And  her 
mistress  punished  her  maid's  impertinence  by 
flinging  her  the  amber  bracelet  she  wore. 

"Now,  disobedient  one,  you  shall  tell  me 
why  you  think  such  a  naughty  thing.  Yet 
you  cannot  know.  No  one  can  see  into  his 
large  mind.  He  keeps  it  closed.  He  is  as  wise 
as  a  priest.  Not  even  I  can  enter  it.  And 
you  are  very  ignorant,  Isonna." 

"Nevertheless,  his  mind  is  as  glass  to  me!" 
insisted  the  maid. 

"I  will  tell  my  father  and  he  shall  punish 
you  with  whips.  Now,  you  dear  little  beast, 
I  shall  force  you  to  tell  me  the  reason  you 
think  in  your  evil  mind  the  great  color-bearer 
to  the  prince  of  heaven  stays  here!" 

"You,"  said  the  maid,  coolly  refilling  first 
the  pipe  of  her  mistress,  then  her  own. 

"I  shall  not  tell  my  father,"  said  Miss  Star- 
Dream,  "for  I  pity  you.  It  is  such  a  great  lie 
that  he  would  make  Ozumi  whip  you  to  death. 
Yet  it  is  a  lie  which  makes  me  happy.  Was  I 
ever  so  happy  as  I  am  now  —  since  he  came  ?" 

"No,"  said  the  maid. 

"But  he  will  go  sometime  —  we  agree  upon 


122  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

that?"  questioned  the  mistress,  once  more 
hoping  anything  but  that  they  did  agree  upon 
that.  The  maid  was  not  blind  to  her  hope. 

"Not  yet,  "she  answered  with  a  decision  which 
gave  joy  to  the  girl's  soul. 

"He  will.    He  must  die." 

"Not  yet,"  declared  the  maid  again. 

"Do  you  suppose  his  love  for  me  — you  said 
it  was  love,  I  did  not !  —  is  greater  than  his 
love  for  the  spirit  of  his  father?" 

"Yes,"  answered  the  maid. 

"Oh,  little  beast!"  cried  her  mistress,  em 
bracing  her.  "Benten,  but  I  am  happy!" 

She  chattered  on:- 

"Also  have  you  noticed  how  beautiful  he  is? 
He  has  hair  like  the  pictures  of  the  gods  — 
though  he  is  a  shaven  samurai.  And  those 
songs  he  sings  he  makes  himself.  I  am  going 
to  learn  a  thousand  musical  instruments  so 
that  I  may  play  them  all.  I  wish  I  could  sing ! 
And,  Isonna,  we  never  laughed  —  really  —  un 
til  he  came,  did  we  ?  Always  that  thing  hung 
over  us.  But  he  is  not  to  know  it.  And  we 
may  forget  it !  And,  Isonna,  have  you  noticed 
that  exquisite  habit  he  has  of  touching  me, 
here,  here,  here?" 


IMPERTINENT   ISONNA  123 

She  laughed  and  made  the  serving-girl  the 
illustrant  of  this  aberration  of  the  soldier. 

"That  he  does  when  he  wants  me  to  look  at 
something  —  often  only  himself.  Or  when  I 
am  not  attending  to  his  words.  I  used  to 
shudder  and  go  away  from  it  —  it  was  so  strange 
-  no  one  else  ever  did  it.  But  I  now  think  it 
very  foolish  to  start  and  be  frightened  by  such 
small  things." 

"I  have  observed  you  go  toward  it !"  droned 
the  maid. 

"That  is  a  vile  lie!"  cried  Hoshiko.  "Say, 
do  you  know  what  causes  that?" 

"No." 

"His  wife;  he  does  that  to  his  wife,  and  she 
—  she  is  not  a  nice  person,  and  likes  it !  Aha ! " 

"He  has  no  wife,"  said  the  maid. 

It  was  this  she  was  hungry  to  hear. 

"How  do  you  know?    Did  he  tell  you?" 

"No.  But  he  wears  stockings,  not  tabi. 
All  soldiers  do." 

"Well,  you  suspicious  little  beast,  what  has 
that  got  to  do  with  his  wife?" 

"I  wash  them." 

"Well?" 

"There  are  no  darns." 


124  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"Oh!    What  then?" 

"Holes." 

"Isonna,"  said  her  mistress,  solemnly,  "  I  be 
lieve  that  you  are  as  wise  as  you  say  you  are ! 
But,  then,  how  do  you  suppose  he  learns  it?" 

"From  you!" 

"Am  I  so  dreadful?" 

"I  have  observed  you  giving  those  touches." 

"He  will  hate  me." 

"Hate  is  not  in  the  direction  he  is  going," 
said  the  wise  maid. 

Hoshiko  could  have  endured  more  of  this 
ecstasy.  But  it  was  very  late,  and  Arisuga  had 
the  soldier's  habit  of  early  rising.  Moreover, 
the  first  thing  he  was  wont  to  do  when  he  rose 
was  to  clap  his  hands,  in  that  way,  and  call  for 
his  earth-angel.  So  she  said  to  Isonna :  — 

"You  have  been  a  naughty,  impertinent, 
gossiping  little  beast.  Put  me  to  bed." 

Yet,  when  this  had  been  done  the  mistress  em 
braced  the  maid  and  would  hardly  let  her  go. 

"What  a  shame  it  is  that  one  must  sleep  when 
one  might  talk  of  him !  But,  then,  if  one  does 
not,  one  is  hideous  in  the  morning !  And  he 
calls  the  moment  he  wakes.  Put  out  the  lights 
and  go  to  bed !  I  will  listen  to  you  no  longer ! " 


IMPERTINENT   ISONNA  125 

Isonna  had  not  spoken.  But  she  did  as  she 
was  commanded. 

"  Isonna !"  the  mistress  called  after  the  maid 
—  who  instantly  returned  —  "I  have  had  such 
a  thought !  Suppose  he  should  never  know ! 
Suppose  I  should  go  to  some  place  with  him 
where  there  is  no  one  who  had  ever  known 
me?  Marry  him?" 

"I  should  be  there." 

"You!  Not  unless  I  should  first  cut  out 
your  gossiping  tongue!" 

"It  would  be  wrong.  The  gods  must 
punish  you ! " 

"How  would  the  gods  know?  I  should  lie 
to  them  also." 

"It  would  be  very  wrong/'  the  maid  repeated. 
"The  only  woman  who  deceives  a  man  — " 

"Is  his  wife,  you  naughty  little  beast!  Go 
straight  to  bed!  I  hate  you!" 


ONLY  TO   TAKE   HER 


XIII 

ONLY  TO   TAKE  HER 

IT  happened  precisely  as  the  wise  maid 
had  said.  He  did  not  go,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
protracted  his  recovery  in  a  scandalous  fashion. 

For  here  it  was  that  Arisuga  began  to  suspect, 
for  the  second  time,  that  the  happiest  moment 
of  his  life  had  come.  If  he  had  known  that 
he  was  in  love,  as  he  did  not,  or  that  there  was 
such  a  thing  as  this  love  he  was  experiencing, 
which  he  did  not,  he  would  have  been  more 
certain  of  that  happiest  moment.  But  a 
Japanese  must  be  told  when  this  has  happened 
to  him.  And  it  must  be  in  another  tongue 
than  his.  For  in  his  language  there  are  no 
words  for  it  —  and  he  knew  no  other.  He 
really  was  not  quite  sure,  therefore,  why  he  was 
lingering  in  China  —  only  suspected  it.  How 
could  he  know,  under  the  circumstances? 
No  feeling  like  this  had  insidiously  crept  upon 
him  when  he  had  taken  Yone*  to  Mukojima  or 

K  129 


130  THE  WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

Shiba  —  even  upon  that  great  night  which  now 
began  to  go  more  and  more  out  of  his  memory. 
And  he  did  not  even  think  of  what  he  had 
laughingly  prophesied  to  her  —  that  forgetting 
—  her  waiting.  He  simply  forgot  her.  Per 
haps  if  Hoshiko  had  known  of  this  defect  in 
the  character  of  Arisuga,  she  might  not  have 
loved  him.  What  Arisuga  remembered  most 
about  his  and  Yone's  excursions  was  that  when 
they  got  hungry  they  went  separately  home 
and  ate.  But  he  had  the  feeling  that  he  would 
stay  here  with  Hoshiko  and  starve  —  or  until 
some  one  from  the  regiment  came  and  took 
him  back  at  the  point  of  a  bayonet.  For  this 
was  a  most  piquant  and  unusual  condition  of 
affairs  between  them:  that  they  should  be 
so  much  alone  together,  that  there  should 
be  so  little  —  almost  nothing  —  of  Hoshiko 's 
parents,  that  she  should  be  as  frankly  intimate 
as  a  geisha  at  a  festival,  who  meant  to  please 
at  all  hazards.  It  was  this  volunteer  intimacy 
which  puzzled  him  most  about  the  girl.  But 
who  was  there  to  tell  him  that  she  had  known 
him  two  weeks  longer  than  he  knew  her? 
And  that  during  all  that  halcyon  time  she 
had  had  her  way  with  her  adoration  of  him  — 


ONLY   TO   TAKE   HER  131 

and  saw  no  reason  in  his  returned  consciousness 
for  changing  it?  Or  that  she  had  lived  here 
untaught  as  a  child?  That  to  her,  since  she 
frankly  adored  him,  there  was  only  one  reason 
why  he  might  not  as  frankly  know  it  —  the 
one  she  had  decided  never  to  tell  ? 

Before  Arisuga  became  a  soldier  he  had  been 
a  poet,  a  musician,  a  songster  —  one  who  had 
responded  at  nature's  high  behest  to  all  mani 
festations  of  beauty.  Now,  in  this  time  of 
peace  and  indolent  convalescence,  he  went 
back  to  all  that  —  almost  as  if  the  life  of  the 
soldier,  which  intervened,  had  never  been.  He 
had  instantly  called  her  "Dream-of-a-Star." 
And  she  was  all  this  to  him.  It  was  good  to 
lie  in  his  futons  and  see  the  perfections  of  her 
grace  as  she  moved  about  intent  upon  his  heal 
ing.  It  was  better  to  hear  her  pretty  voice. 
It  was  best  of  all  to  feel  her  touch  upon  him 
and  to  see  the  lighted  eyes  which  always  accom 
panied  it.  At  first  there  was  the  sense  of 
having  found  a  butterfly  by  the  dusty  roadside 
of  his  duty  which  might  yield  a  moment  of  joy. 
But  when  he  knew  that,  whether  he  wished  it 
or  not,  he  must  lie  here  many  weeks  before 
he  could  fight  again,  the  sense  that  he  wag 


132  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

sacrificing  duty  to  pleasure  disappeared,  and 
he  let  himself  enjoy  his  nearness  to  the  girl 
and  let  his  poetic  spirit  revel  in  her  fragile 
beauty  without  further  thought  of  the  duty 
which  lay  in  wait  for  him.  That,  he  finally 
decided,  would  attend  to  itself.  A  soldier  is 
not  long  permitted  to  forget  his  duty. 

But,  the  thing  which  continued  to  stir  and 
puzzle  him  most  was  the  fancy  which  now  and 
then  came,  that  he  might  have  this  wonderful 
creature  precisely  like  the  butterfly  he  had 
thought  her.  Indeed,  he  could  scarcely  get 
away  from  the  impression  that  there  were  times 
when  she  offered  herself  to  him.  Yet  though 
he  was  not  very  learned  concerning  women  him 
self,  he  knew  that  there  was  only  one  sort  who 
offered  herself  to  a  man.  Sometimes  her  little 
timorous  darings  let  him  believe,  for  a  moment, 
that  she  was  of  this  kind.  But  nearly  always 
the  idea  was  quenched  out  by  some  act  of  such 
utter  innocency  as  could  not  be  mistaken  for 
coquetry.  Still  the  recurrence  of  an  idea, 
originally  erroneous,  is  likely  to  be  strengthened 
by  each  repetition.  And  this  was  what  was 
happening  to  the  sick  soldier. 

Nevertheless  he  continued  to  fancy  that  of 


ONLY   TO   TAKE   HER  133 

all  the  spirits,  from  the  moon-goddess  down, 
none  were  so  dainty,  so  fragile,  so  tender, 
caressing,  and  altogether  lovely  as  this  Hoshiko, 
who  was  not  a  spirit  at  all,  even  though  she 
was  there,  day  after  day,  at  his  bedside,  sug 
gesting  herself  to  him  with  either  the  abandon 
of  a  child  or  the  intention  of  a  woman  of  joy. 
Had  he  been  as  wise  about  women  as  he  was 
simple,  and  she  as  wise  about  men  as  she  pre 
tended,  who  had  no  wisdom  at  all  concerning 
them,  such  a  misunderstanding  would  not  have 
occurred. 

For  she  was  not  offering  herself  to  him  at  all. 
She  was  a  child  with  a  toy.  And  at  first  the 
subtraction  of  this  toy,  even  though  the  like 
and  fascination  of  it  exceeded  any  other  she 
had  ever  had,  would  have  portended  little  of 
tragedy.  But  later  it  was  more  serious. 
Something  inside  which  had  never  stirred  before 
began  to  stir  now.  This  contact  with  a  man, 
these  intimacies  with  one  not  much  more 
learned  in  the  art  of  loving  than  she,  had 
awakened  the  sleeping  thing  within  which 
would  one  day  be  her  womanhood. 

As  for  her,  one  must  not  forget  that  at  the 
last  she  wished  to  be  adored.  All  women  do. 


134  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

But  if  a  woman  loves  a  man  too  much,  he  runs 
away.  If  she  loves  him  just  enough,  he  stays. 
If  she  loves  him  a  little  less  than  enough,  he 
runs  after  her. 

"If  I  were  a  man,"  said  Isonna,  "I  would  care 
for  only  such  pretty  things  as  you  —  not  for 
wars  and  fightings  —  even  great  deaths.  For 
what  is  the  last  heaven  but  a  state  of  bliss ! 
And  if  one  has  all  the  bliss  one  can  bear  or 
understand  here  on  earth,  is  that  not  a  heaven  ? 
And  truly  if  I  were  a  man,  it  would  be  extreme 
bliss  to  touch  you,  here,  and  here,  and  here, 
to  put  an  arm  about  you  so,  to  sit  in  the  andon 
light,  so—  " 

All  of  which  things  the  adoring  maid  illus 
trated,  to  her  saddened  mistress,  in  the  light 
of  the  night  lamp,  and  to  all  of  them  her  mis 
tress  agreed. 


THE   GOING   OF   THE   SOLDIER 


XIV 

THE   GOING  OF  THE  SOLDIER 

FOR  the  soldier  must  go.  There  was  not  a 
vestige  of  excuse  for  remaining  longer.  The 
terrible  mother  had  entered  his  chamber,  had 
looked  at  him,  had  said  briefly  that  he  was  quite 
well.  And  Hoshiko  herself  had  done  everything 
but  ask  him  flatly  to  stay.  How  could  she 
do  that  ?  Isonna  had  warned  her  constantly  of 
the  sort  of  woman  who  did  that  in  Japan. 
The  mere  asking  would  be  enough  —  in  such  a 
woman  —  to  advertise  her  as  of  joy.  And  for 
want  of  this  word  of  asking,  the  heaven  she 
had  made  was  closing. 

But  Isonna  and  some  of  the  circumstances 
of  the  case  had  taught  her  more  and  more  that 
any  more  frowardness  would  be  seriously  mis 
construed  by  the  invalid. 

"You  are  a  wake,"  said  Isonna,  mysteriously, 
who  was  not  blind  to  the  maturing  of  the  thing 
called  womanhood. 

"Ah,"  sighed  the  happy  and  miserable  girl, 

137 


138  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"if  to  wake  means  this,  then  I  wish  that  I  might 
always  have  slept." 

"You  did  not  sleep,"  said  the  still  mysterious 
maid. 

"What  did  I  then,  little  beast?" 

"You  dreamed." 

"Then,"  begged  the  girl,  with  a  piteous  smile, 
"make  me  to  dream  again,  and  take  care  that  I 
never  wake." 

"Ah,  sweet  mistress,"  said  the  maid,  "there 
comes  to  all,  in  the  matter  of  men,  a  time  to 
sleep,  a  time  to  dream,  and  a  time  to  wake.  The 
sleep  is  best.  For  in  that  one  knows  nothing. 
The  dream  is  sweet.  But  it  never  lasts.  The 
waking  sometimes  is  good  —  sometimes  evil. 
Good  it  is  if  all  is  fair  between  a  man  and  a 
woman.  Evil  it  is  if  all  is  not.  And,  mistress 
dear,  all  is  not  fair  between  you  and  him.  So 
there  is  another  thing  after  the  waking  —  which 
the  gods  make." 

"What  is  that,  wise  little  beast?"  laughed 
Hoshiko. 

"It  is  the  forgetting  which  heals,"  said  the 
maid. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  be  healed,"  answered  her 
mistress. 


THE   GOING   OF   THE  SOLDIER  139 

"Then  must  you  be  always  ill  of  this  thing." 

"So  be  it.    That  is  better  than  a  forgetting." 

"But  it  must  go  no  further,"  pleaded  the 
servitor.  "There  must  be  no  touches,  no 
eyes,  no  beatings  of  the  heart." 

"Can  you  stop  the  beating  of  the  heart? 
The  adoring  of  the  eyes?  Can  any  one?" 

"Yes.  In  your  room  waits  always  the  god 
dess  of  tranquillity.  Go  there.  Stay  there. 
She  will  soothe  you." 

"Yes,  when  he  is  gone  —  quite  gone  —  then 
we  will  tiy  for  that  tranquillity.  We  had  it 
before  he  came!" 

"We  shall  have  it  again,"  cheered  the  maid. 
"As  soon  as  he  is  gone — " 

"Oh!"  A  flash  of  Hoshiko's  old  manner 
energized  her.  "I  know  a  better  and  happier 
way  to  insure  that  tranquillity." 

"What  is  it?" 

' '  Ask  him  to  —  stay !    You ! " 

The  maid  only  gasped. 

"Yes,"  said  her  mistress,  more  timorously 
than  she  had  ever  spoken  of  him. 

"  Ask  a  man  to  stay?" 

"Certainly!  That  is  what  I  said.  Am  I  so 
hard  to  understand?" 


140  THE  WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

Hoshiko  spoke  with  more  pain  than  asperity. 

"You  may  —  with  honor — "  pleaded  Ho 
shiko.  "He  doesn't  love  you.  You  do  not 
love  him." 

"And  if  the  asking  of  these  lips  and  hands  and 
eyes  and  this  voice,  all  that  are  permitted  you, 
are  not  potent  —  how  shall  I  be  ?  How  shall 
any  one  or  anything  be  ?  Let  him  go." 

"Stop!"  cried  her  mistress.  "He  is  a  god. 
We  are  creatures.  What  we  wish  we  must 
petition  for  as  we  do  the  gods.  Yet  I  dare  not 
—  will  not  you?" 

"  No  ! "  said  the  maid.  ' '  I  know  the  penalty. 
I  do  not  wish  you  to  know  it." 


BUT   WHAT   COULD   HE   DO? 


XV 

BUT  WHAT  COULD   HE  DO? 

HOWEVER,  it  all  came  out  involuntarily  when, 
at  last,  he  began  with  tremendous  difficulty  to 
go  away.  He  was  already  at  the  courtyard 
gate  when  she  sobbed.  He  was  gone  —  oh,  it 
mattered  not  now  what  she  did ! 

But  Arisuga  hearing  this,  of  course,  returned. 
His  renewed  presence  only  renewed  the  Lady 
Hoshi's  tears. 

"But  what  can  I  do?"  he  kept  on  asking 
politely. 

"Stay!"  cried  the  Lady  Hoshi,  madly,  for 
getting  everything  but  that  one  wish. 

"Oh!"  said  Arisuga. 

"Gods!"  breathed  Isonna. 

"Only  till  to-morrow;  that  is  but  one  day; 
to-morrow,  lord  —  lord  of  my  soul !" 

"Oh!"  said  Arisuga  again,  and,  at  once  en 
tirely  willing,  dismissed  his  'rik'sha. 

The  next  day  he  took  her  to  the  Forbidden 

143 


144  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

City  and  showed  her  the  tragic,  broken  won 
ders  of  it,  while  he  puzzled  out  that  scene  of 
the  day  before.  There  were  times  when  he 
had  to  help  her  up  on  broken  walls  and  over 
fallen  sculptures.  And  more  and  more  as  he 
possessed  her  thus  for  one  day  he  wanted  to 
possess  her  indefinitely.  For  the  hands  were 
very  soft,  the  eyes  luminous,  the  small  body 
where  it  touched  his  exquisite. 

He  found  it  hard  to  believe  —  that,  like  a 
courtezan,  she  would  beg  him  to  stay.  Yet, 
it  was  for  but  one  day !  No  woman  of  joy 
would  stop  there !  At  last  he  spoke :  — 

"Were  you  educated  in  Japan  —  or  China, 
angel  of  my  earth-heaven?"  he  asked  of  her. 

"In  China,  lord,  such  things  as  a  girl  learns 
after  three  years,  but  in  the  Japanese  way 
entirely." 

There  was  little  enlightenment  in  that. 

"And  have  you  known  many  men?" 

"Yes,"  she  answered  at  once,  thinking  that 
was  what  he  wished. 

"No !"  cried  Isonna. 

The  two  girls  turned  together.  Hoshiko  was 
about  to  chastise  the  maid.  But  she  was  ter 
rified  at  the  pallor  of  her  face.  Neverthe- 


BUT  WHAT   COULD   HE  DO?  145 

less  she  insisted,  with  a  certain  pathetic 
dignity :  — 

"I  said  —  yes!" 

"I  say  no!"  stubbornly  cried  the  maid. 
"None!  none!" 

Arisuga  deprecatingly  waved  his  hand,  and 
courteously  believed  what  they  disagreed 
about. 

"What  does  it  matter?"  he  said. 

But  the  maid  whispered  tragically  to  her 
mistress :  — 

"See  what  you  have  done !" 

"What?"  asked  Hoshiko. 

The  maid's  whisper  was  sinister. 

"Do  you  wish  him  to  think  that  you  have 
been  any  one's?  Every  one's?  That  is  why 
he  asked." 

"It  is  not !"  protested  Hoshiko.  "He  asked 
to  learn  how  many  others  love  me." 

"And  why  should  he  ask  that?" 

"Because  he  loves  me,"  was  Hoshiko's 
enigmatic  answer. 

There  was  no  time  at  this  moment  for  fur 
ther  explication.  Arisuga  had  evidently  de 
cided  something  which  was  in  his  mind  when 
he  asked  his  first  question,  and  Hoshiko  fan- 


146  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

cied  that  his  decision  was  against  her.  For 
he  laughed  (not  as  she  would  have  wished 
him  to  laugh),  and  took  an  almost  rude  and 
assured  possession  of  her. 

"When  the  mistress  says  yes  and  the  maid 
says  no,  one  must  believe  his  eyes,  which  say 
it  is  improbable  that  so  fair  a  flower  has 
bloomed  unseen  even  in  this  arid  plain  of 
China!" 

"You  think,  then,  that  I  have  had  —  twenty 
lovers?"  asked  Hoshiko. 

"Certainly,"  laughed  Arisuga. 

"No!"  still  cried  the  maid  in  her  terror. 
"You  believe,  lord,  that  she  has  had  none  — 
not  one  —  until  you  came !" 

"Certainly,"  laughed  the  soldier  again. 

The  two  girls  looked  at  each  other  dazedly. 
Arisuga  laughed  again  in  that  unpleasant 
way. 

"Now  he  will  never  know  that  I  love  him," 
chided  the  mistress,  at  an  opportune  moment. 
"If  he  had  thought  that  I  gave  up  twenty 
lovers  the  moment  he  came  - 

The  maid  had  not  seen  the  value  of  creating 
such  a  situation.  Hoshiko  practised  tremen 
dous  wisdom.  She  repeated  to  Isonna,  in  the 


BUT    WHAT    COULD    HE    DO?  147 

intervals  of  the  day,  the  very  things  Isonna 
had  taught  her  with  great  pains. 

"A  man  will  think  nothing  of  you  unless  he 
knows  that  others  do.  If  one  has  two  lovers, 
one  can  easily  have  twenty.  If  one  has  one 
and  is  truthful  —  that  is  all  one  will  ever  have. 
If  one  has  none,  how  is  one  to  get  even  one 
unless  she  pretends  to  have  many?  For  if  no 
man  cares  for  you,  no  man  will.  If  many  men 
care  for  you,  many  more  will.  If  a  man  loves 
one  and  he  sees  that  no  one  else  does,  he  per 
suades  himself  that  he  does  not.  For  he 
thinks  that  if  no  one  else  loves  one,  one  is  not 
worth  loving.  But  if  many  love  one,  he  per 
suades  himself  that  he  does,  because  if  many 
love  one  it  must  be  right  and  proper  for  him 
to  do  it.  Now,  you  little  beast,  you  must 
help,  after  putting  him  further  off,  to  bring 
him  nearer  by  making  him  think  that  he  loves 
and  desires  me  more  than  any  of  the  twenty." 

These  philosophies  of  her  own  teaching, 
changed  and  informed  with  the  aroma  of 
Hoshiko,  went  far  to  convince  Isonna. 

"Sweet  mistress,"  said  the  repentant  servant, 
"the  gods  pardon  me  —  and  you — you  also 
pardon  me  —  if  I  have  done  wrong.  But 


148  THE  WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

this  —  this  I  will  do  —  and  swear  it  on  the 
tablet  of  my  father:  If  he  should  offer  you 
marriage,  I  will  go  with  you  to  some  place 
where  he  can  never  know.  I  will  keep  your 
secret  forever.  Such  things  have  happened. 
In  another  country  the  gods  will  not  follow. 
Even  to  the  country  of  some  barbarian  people, 
like  America,  I  will  go.  What  gods  are  there  ? 
Certainly  none  of  our  gods  —  such  as  know 
you  and  him.  But  I  will  not  say  that  you 
have  been  the  creature  of  twenty  lovers ! " 

"But  only  to  make  him  understand  that 
he  loves  me  —  now  —  here — to-day  ?  We  have 
given  him  doubt !  The  rest  does  not  matter." 

Isonna  was  repentant  but  not  helpful. 

"Well  —  study  —  think  —  you  little  beast! 
And  be  more  careful  next  time  —  then  whisper 
it  to  me.  How  to  make  him  understand !" 

But  there  was  no  further  communication 
from  the  maid. 

In  the  evening  Arisuga  said :  — 

"If  what  I  have  been  thinking  all  day  — 
since  the  events  of  last  night  —  is  correct,  and 
also  meets  your  approval,  I  will  take  you." 

And  the  little  Lady  Hoshi,  shocked  and 
stunned  and  shivering  at  her  heart,  answered :  — 


BUT  WHAT  COULD   HE  DO?  149 

"Yes,  lord." 

And  again  that  night  she  wept  —  not  an 
hour  —  many  hours.  For  you  will  have  ob 
served  that  Shijiro  Arisuga  did  not  say  that 
he  would  marry  —  but  only  take  her.  (There 
is  a  difference  in  Japan.)  And  he  did  not  ask 
her  parents. 

"You  see,  he  knows!"  she  sobbed  to  the 
faithful  maid.  "Oh,  it  was  so  sweet  —  so 
sweet  —  that  I  forgot  that  I  must  not.  And 
when  I  thought  he  loved  me  I  was  sure  he 
would  say  'I  will  marry  you,'  even  if  he  did 
not  mean  it.  But  he  only  said,  'I  will  take 
you.'  So  —  he  does  not  love  me  —  no  !  Well, 
Isonna,  he  shall  have  me.  And  I  will  enter  his 
very  soul !  And  then,  some  day,  he  will  regret 
those  awful  words,  and  when  he  does  I  will  die 
where  he  can  see  me  afterward.  You  shall 
dress  my  hair  in  the  shimada  fashion,  with 
flowers." 

"He  does  not  know,"  said  the  maid.  "And 
he  does  love  you.  It  is  the  result  of  telling 
him  that  you  have  had  twenty  lovers  !  " 

"Ah,  Isonna,  do  not  make  my  sorrow  heavier. 
That  would  be  worse.  He  would  not  dare  to  say 
that  to  even  me  —  if  I  were  not  what  I  am." 


150  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

The  maid  still  insisted. 

"Then  to-morrow  I  will  tell  him.  If  he 
would  say  that  to  a  lady,  who  he  thinks  has 
dismissed  many  suitors  for  him,  he  shall  know 
that  he  has  said  it  to  one  who  is  not  a  lady 
and  who  has  had  no  suitor  but  him  alone." 

"And  one  who  has  parents  to  be  consulted! 
Not  like  one  who  goes  to  Geisha  street  without 
the  leave  of  parents  or  uncles,"  advised  the 
maid,  with  great  severity. 

"Yes,"  sobbed  the  girl.  "Geisha  street! 
Refuge  of  the  forsaken !  Oh,  love  exalts,  as 
we  do  our  parents.  It  does  not  demean.  So, 
there  is  no  love,  no  love !  No  matter  what  I 
am,  however  low,  no  matter  what  he  is,  how 
ever  high,  if  he  loved  me  he  would  ask  my 
parents  for  leave  to  marry  me  —  even  if  he 
only  meant  to  take  me.  And  I  thought  he 
loved  me !  Do  you  remember  how,  only  a  little 
while  ago,  I  wished  him  only  to  know  well  that 
he  loved  me !  Alas,  he  knows  now  that  I  love 
him,  but  he  has  told  me  odiously,  odiously, 
that  he  does  not  love  me !  Yes,  Isonna,  he 
shall  have  me.  Then  I  will  die." 


THE   MAKING   OF   A   GODDESS 


XVI 

THE  MAKING  OF  A  GODDESS 

So  she  said  the  next  day,  not  now  with  the 
aplomb  of  a  lady,  but  as  a  servant :  — 

' '  Lord,  there  is  a  reason  why  you  cannot  — 
even  -  "  she  choked  in  her  throat  —  "take  me. 
Do  you  not  know  it?" 

"Do  not  call  me  lord,"  he  said,  "as  if  you 
were  a  servant  and  I  your  master." 

"It  is  right  that  I  should  do  so,  lord." 

"I  won't  have  it,"  he  laughed. 

And  he  had  never  seemed  so  beautiful  nor 
the  sound  of  his  voice  so  tender.  But  she  went 
on  as  she  had  planned  in  her  sleepless  night. 

She  was  kneeling  at  his  feet  now  —  her 
head  upon  the  mats  —  reaching  out  to  touch 
him. 

"Dear  lord,  I  have  deceived  you,"  she  said. 
"My  only  excuse  is  that  it  was  sweet.  All  the 
sweetness  I  have  had  in  my  small  life.  Lord, 
I  am  young.  But  I  had  scarcely  smiled  until 

163 


154  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

you  came.  In  Japan  we  were  accursed.  I 
was  beautiful  and  my  father  pitied  me  and 
brought  me  here  where  no  one  knew.  Lord,  I 
am  an  eta." 

Arisuga  recoiled  from  the  word.  The  instant 
would  have  been  inappreciable  to  measures  of 
time.  But  in  it  the  girl's  heart  leaped  and 
fell  with  its  own  understanding.  In  the  same 
instant  Arisuga  knew  all  that  had  so  puzzled 
him  concerning  the  beautiful  creature  at  his 
feet.  And  he  understood  what  his  saying 
must  have  been  to  her.  For  this  he  would 
make  a  soldier's  great  reparation  —  and  at 
once !  That  was  the  way  of  Arisuga. 

"Then  you  have  known  no  one  —  no  man 
but  me?" 

"No,"  whispered  the  girl.  "I  thought  if  I 
had  twenty  lovers,  you  would  wish  me  the 
more." 

"And  what  I  have  foolishly  taken  for  the  ad 
vances  of  experience  have  been  innocencies ! " 

Not  she,  but  Isonna,  spoke  out :  — 

"Yes,  lord.  It  was  as  I  said.  I  am  here  now, 
when  men  might  wish  her,  to  see  that  none 
approach.  There  has  been  no  one  but  you." 

"Little  Lady  Hoshi,"  said  Shijiro  Arisuga,  to 


THE   MAKING  OF  A  GODDESS  155 

her  bruised  heart,  "  there  is  but  one  reparation 
I  can  make  for  yesterday.  It  is  to  wish  you  to 
become  my  wife  —  to-day." 

"But,  lord,  beautiful  lord,"  cried  the  girl, 
"you  did  not  hear  what  I  said.  I  spoke  too 
low.  I  was  at  your  feet  — "  and  now  she 
deliberately  raised  her  agonized  face  to  his  that 
there  might  be  no  mistake  —  "Lord,  I  am  an 
eta !  The  accursed,  despised  caste !  To  the 
samurai  we  are  as  lepers !  No  samurai  in  all 
the  thousands  of  years  of  our  empire  has  ever 
married  an  eta !  None  has  ever  touched  one  ! 
Lord,  you  did  not  hear!" 

"I  heard.  Pray,  call  me  lord  no  more,  but 
husband." 

"Li  —  li  —  Pardon  me,  husband,  I  have  been 
taught  that  I  am  not  to  expect  marriage." 

"Who  taught  you  that?" 

"Even  my  father !    My  mother !" 

"Gods !    It  shall  be  to-morrow." 

" Yi  —  yes,  li  —  li  —  husband,"  chattered 
Hoshiko. 

"And  on  that  day  there  shall  be  a  new  god 
dess  to  be  worshipped,  and  her  name  shall  be 
called  Star-Dream !  And  the  first  prayer  she 
shall  hear  will  be  from  a  very  brutal  soldier  to 


156  THE  WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

be  forgiven  for  a  little  start  upon  hearing  a  cer 
tain  untrue  word.  For  no  goddess  can  be  an  eta 
—  even  if  it  were  possible  for  a  mortal  as  beauti 
ful  as  you  to  be  an  eta.  So,  even  to-day,  see," 
as  he  gathered  her  from  the  floor  strongly  into 
his  arms,  "you  are  my  goddess  —  to-morrow 
you  will  be  my  wife." 

"Lord,  I  have  no  wedding  garments!  You 
know  that  though  a  Japanese  maiden  has  always 
ready  her  garments  for  death  or  marriage,  an 
eta  maid  has  only  those  for  death  ready.  It  is 
presumption  to  have  —  the  —  the  others." 

"Then  there  shall  be  no  wedding  garment  but 
this,"  and  he  touched  the  dainty  thing  she 
wore.  "Where  are  your  parents  that  I  may 
ask  their  consent?" 

Hoshiko  did  not  know.  But  Arisuga  sus 
pected  that  they  were  close  behind  the  fusuma 
listening  with  staring  eyes  and  gaping  mouths. 

He  suddenly  pushed  aside  the  slides  —  and 
there  they  were. 

"To-morrow  I  wed  your  daughter,"  he  said 
to  them  with  his  soldier's  savagery. 

He  respectfully  gave  them  time  for  an  answer 
—  but  he  meant  them  to  understand  that  they 
dare  not  refuse.  And  together,  when  they 


THE   MAKING   OF   A   GODDESS  157 

had  the  breath  for  it,  they  bowed  to  the  very 
earth  and  said :  — 

"Yea,  august  lord!" 

Arisuga  bowed  haughtily  in  return,  and 
closed  the  slides  upon  them. 

"You  see/'  he  said  to  Hoshiko,  "there  is 
nothing  but  the  three  times  three  between  us 
and  our  earth-heaven,  goddess ! " 

"Yes,  lord,"  she  shivered. 

She  begged  for  delay,  but  he  would  not  grant 
it,  so  all  that  night,  while  he  slept  near,  she  and 
Isonna  in  the  next  room  strove  to  make  a 
trousseau  out  of  her  shroud. 


THE   ETA 


XVII 

THE  ETA 

Now,  even  when  Arisuga  had  spoken  of  mar 
riage,  he  had  the  thought  that  it  would  probably 
not  be  longer  than  for  his  stay  in  China.  At  his 
going  there  would  be  a  happy  understanding 
that  this  meant  divorce  and  that  she  might 
marry  again.  For  he  was  bound  by  his  oath 
to  the  great  death,  that  she  knew ;  and  if  this 
were  to  be  all,  it  mattered  little  that  Hoshiko 
was  an  eta.  In  China  it  was  not  heinous. 

Yet  even  thus  early  the  thought  of  some  one 
else  finding  this  wild  flower  when  he  was  gone 
as  he  had  found  it  —  and,  alas !  of  doing  as  he 
was  about  to  do  —  he  did  not  like  that.  He 
did  not  like  his  part  in  it.  It  haunted  his 
dreams  there  in  the  room  next  to  her  and  he 
woke. 

She  was  sobbing.   Then  he  heard  her  mother : 

"Here  is  the  sword,"  she  said,  in  a  voice  hard 
as  steel.  "  Be  brave !  First  pray  ! " 

M  161 


162  THE  WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

"Yes,"  sobbed  Hoshiko. 

Arisuga  crashed  through  the  paper  wall 
between  them  like  the  thunder-god.  Before 
him  was  Hoshiko,  preparing  the  sword  for  its 
work.  About  her,  on  the  floor,  was  spread  the 
pitiful  evidence  that  she  had  tried  to  improvise 
a  trousseau  out  of  her  funeral  garments.  There 
was  a  sheer  white  kimono  of  silk,  the  sleeves  of 
which  she  had  lengthened  to  the  wedding  size. 
(Death  and  marriage  are  both  white  in  Japan.) 
She  had  just  laid  it  down.  It  was  with  this — 
all  useless  now  —  that  she  had  wrapped  the 
sword.  Above  her  stood  her  mother. 

"What  does  this  mean  ? "  demanded  Arisuga, 
taking  the  sword  from  Hoshiko. 

"My  mother  wishes  me  to  die,"  sobbed  the 
girl. 

"And  you?"   asked  Arisuga,  savagely. 

"I  wish  to  live.    To  marry  you,  lord." 

"There  are  no  wedding  garments,"  said  the 
mother. 

"Nor  any  funeral  garments  now!"  said 
Arisuga,  slashing  them  with  the  sword. 

"You  wish  my  daughter  for  only  a  little 
while  —  then  go  !" 

"That  is  my  affair.    I  take  her!" 


THE   ETA  163 

"0  Jizo,"  Hoshiko  whispered  within  herself, 
"I  thank  you!  Do  not  let  your  mercy  stop! 
Perhaps  —  perhaps  —  0  Benten  !" 

"You  become  an  eta  if  you  marry  her," 
Hoshiko's  mother  was  saying. 

"In  Japan,"  admitted  Arisuga.  "That  is 
the  way  the  unwise  men  of  old  worked  to  pre 
vent  the  marriage  of  etas  —  and  so  blot  out 
the  caste.  But  this  is  China." 

And  now  as  the  young  soldier  looked  down 
upon  the  pitiful  little  heap  at  his  side,  a  great 
shame  rose  in  his  soul  that  he  had  ever  thought 
of  marrying  her  for  a  little  while,  and,  quite 
like  Arisuga,  he  rushed  in  his  penitence  from 
one  extreme  to  the  other. 

"By  all  the  eight  hundred  thousand  gods,  I 
will  marry  her  for  all  my  lives!" 

No  adjuration,  no  promise,  could  be  greater 
than  that.  Some  men  had  sworn  fealty  to  a 
woman  for  two  lives  —  some  for  three  or 
four  —  and  it  was  said  that  once  a  man  had 
sworn  to  love  a  great  poetess  for  seven  lives; 
but  no  one  had  ever  yet,  so  it  was  said,  sworn 
his  love,  much  less  marriage,  for  all  his  lives. 
Yet  even  this  did  not  stop  the  savage 
mother  of  Hoshiko,  bent  upon  her  daughter's 


164  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

honorable  death  rather  than  her  dishonorable 
marriage. 

' '  How  will  you  assure  me  of  this  ?  "  demanded 
she. 

"By  nothing  but  my  word/'  said  Shijiro,  with 
all  his  samurai's  haughtiness. 

"Gods  !  Gods  !  How  mighty  and  wise  you 
are,  lord!"  sobbed  Hoshiko,  kissing  his  feet. 

"But  you  will  not  be  satisfied  to  live  in 
China.  You  will  take  her  to  Japan,  where 
both  will  be  accursed  etas,"  went  on  the  im 
placable  mother.  "You  are  a  soldier." 

"I  am  a  soldier,"  answered  Shijiro  Arisuga. 
"In  the  army  there  is  neither  eta  nor  samurai. 
All  are  equal.  All  are  sons  of  the  emperor. 
This  is  Yamato  Damashii.  The  New  Japan! 
And  I  am  Shijiro  Arisuga !  That  is  the  end !" 

And  it  was  the  end.  Here  was  a  soldier  who 
could  vanquish  the  Medusa  mother  of  Hoshiko 
by  the  cold  process  of  words. 

"Witnesses!  Sake!  I  will  not  leave  this 
lady  again  until  she  is  my  wife !" 

And  so  terrible  was  this  Shijiro  Arisuga  in  his 
wrath  that  everything  happened  as  he  ordered 
—  and  they  were  married.  I  wish  they  might 
have  lived  happily  ever  after.  But  it  was  only 


THE  ETA  165 

a  few  glad  weeks.  Yet,  in  those  little  days  and 
hours,  she  did  what  she  had  threatened :  crept 
into  his  heart  so  deeply  that  he  was  never  to 
dislodge  her  quite  until  he  died.  And  it  was 
here  Shijiro  Arisuga  thought  for  the  second 
time,  without  suspicion  to  mar  it,  that  the 
happiest  moment  of  his  life  had  come. 

Fancy  the  joy  of  it  all !  Sure,  I  cannot  tell 
it.  I  have  no  fit  words.  It  was  infinitely 
better  than  either  had  dreamed.  The  dainty 
little  creature  known  as  -Hoshiko  bloomed  into 
splendor  as  Madame  Shijiro  —  perhaps  because 
she  had  no  thought — absolutely  none — for  any 
thing  but  him.  And  he  was  daily  more  and  more 
amazed  at  the  number  of  thoughts  he  spent 
upon  her,  who,  he  had  once  fancied,  he  could 
leave  behind  for  some  one  else  —  for  many  others. 

Indeed,  it  came  to  such  a  state  that  he 
had  little  thought  for  anything  but  her.  The 
military  death  was  forgotten  —  Yone  was. 

"Now  if  we  dream,"  he  laughed  to  her  one 
day,  "take  heed  that  we  do  not  wake.  For 
this  dream  is  such  as  I  have  never  dreamed 
before.  In  it  are  perfumes  and  melodies, 
caresses  and  touches,  passions  and  calms, 
sleeps  and  wakings,  and  all  delights." 


166  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"And  you,"  laughed  his  wife,  flinging  her 
self  upon  him. 

"And  you,"  he  laughed  back,  not  putting  her 
away. 

"And  that  thing  the  foreigners  call  love." 

"Grown  larger  in  our  sunny  East  than  they 
know  it  in  their  chilly  West !"  added  her  hus 
band. 


TO   THE   EMPEROR 


XVIII 

TO  THE  EMPEROR 

Bur  the  little  paradise  she  had  made  for 
him  there  was  one  day  invaded  by  two  soldiers 
with  some  mysterious  order,  the  command  of 
which  was  that  he  must  rejoin  his  regiment  at 
once,  though  there  was  now  no  war. 

"It  is  '  on  to  the  emperor,'  "  laughed  Arisuga, 
"and  I  must  go.  I  had  forgotten  —  thank 
you!  Forgotten  the  emperor  !  The  death!" 

"Is  it  far  to  the  emperor?"  asked  his  little 
wife. 

"Yes,"  sighed  and  laughed  Arisuga,  rubbing 
her  cheek  against  his  —  you  know  they  were 
of  precisely  the  same  height. 

"And  there  is  danger?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  her  husband,  indifferently. 

"If  you  should  be  killed,  you  will  let  me  know 
at  once?" 

"Certainly,  I  will  tell  you  myself,"  laughed 
he.  "For  what  is  that  killing  to  this  going 
away  from  you !" 

169 


170  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"Oh  —  it  is  not  so  sad  as  waiting  — waiting 
—  waiting  —  for  you  to  come  again  !  Have  I 
made  you  happy?" 

"As  a  god/'  he  said. 

"Then,  if  you  should  not  be  killed  —  you 
will  come  back  to  be  happy  again?" 

"Nothing  but  death  shall  keep  me  from  you  ! " 

"Swear  —  by  your  eyes  —  by  your  heart  — 
by  your  soul  —  by  your  mother's,  your  father's 
memory !" 

All  of  which  he  did  —  still  laughing. 

"What  more,  beloved  one?" 

"Only  your  own  sweet  word,  my  beautiful 
lord,  that  you  will  come  back.  Say  this: 
'Beloved  who  loves  me  more  than  the  rest  in 
Buddha's  bosom,  and  whom  I  love  as  much  — ' 
That  is  true,  is  it  not?" 

"That  is  true,"  he  laughed. 

"'I  will  come  back  at  the  first  moment  of 
opportunity,  if  I  live,  to  my  —  wife!" 

He  repeated  this  after  her. 

"Now  go!  The  waiting  will  be  ecstasy. 
Go !  The  sooner  you  go,  the  sooner  you  will 
return.  I  am  not  afraid.  I  am  your  wife. 
You  have  said  it.  Here  or  there,  in  the  earths 
or  the  heavens !  For  all  your  lives  —  all,  all ! 


TO  THE  EMPEROR  171 

And  I  will  be  no  other  man's  wife  while  I  live ! 
Or  after  death.  And  some  day  you  shall  have 
a  son  —  like  you  in  everything !  —  to  keep  the 
lamps  alight  when  you  are  dead.  For  there 
will  be  for  you  a  soldier's  shrine.  Now  go  or 
my  heart  will  burst.  And  remember  that  in 
China  or  America  or  Germany  I  am  your  wife ! 
But  in  Japan  I  am  an  eta  —  and  you.  Remem 
ber  !  Some  day  there  will  be  a  son,  some 
day  — soon!" 

For  if  nothing  else  would  bring  him  back, 
she  thought  this  untrue  promise  would ! 

And  so  they  parted  —  she  pulling  him  back 
and  pushing  him  off  —  there  by  the  Sacred  City 
he  had  helped  to  win  —  until  she  closed  her 
eyes  and  clenched  her  hands  and  flung  her 
self  on  the  ground,  face  down,  and  would  not 
touch  or  speak  to  him  again.  When  he  was 
out  of  sight  she  was  sorry,  and  ran  to  the  roof 
whence  she  could  see  the  hills.  There  he  was, 
walking  between  the  two  soldiers !  And  he 
turned  because  she  so  desperately  wished  him 
to  —  the  gods  made  him  do  it,  of  this  she  was 
certain  —  and  waved  a  hand  to  her ;  and  with 
both  of  hers  she  sent  after  him  all  the  blessings 
of  the  immortal  gods. 


172  THE  WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

"I  will  —  I  will  be  brave,"  she  cried  terribly 
to  Isonna,  who  had  said  nothing.  "I  will  be 
brave  as  he !" 

"But  how  can  we  when  all  our  life  has  gone 
yonder!" 

And  the  maid  sobbed  in  utter  abandon. 

"You  love  him  too?  You!  Isonna,  the 
savage,  the  eta,  the  man-hater  !  The  declaimer 
against  him,  and  me,  and  love !  You !  Oh, 
gods !" 

"Yes,"  whined  the  maid. 

"Come,"  cried  her  mistress,  with  tears  and 
laughter.  "He  shall  have  two  widows!" 

She  embraced  her  maid  violently  enough  for 
bodily  injury. 

"Oh,  is  not  the  world  beautiful !"  cried  Ho- 
shiko.  "  I,  who  never  hoped  to  be  a  wife  at  all, 
am  the  wife  of  a  god.  And  he  who  had  no 
thought  of  one  goes  yonder  leaving  two  widows ! 
Oh,  girl  brute,  we  are  his  wife  for  all  his  dear 
lives !  Yes,  we  will  be  brave !  We  are  a  sol 
dier's  wife!" 


ON   MIYAGI   FIELD 


XIX 

ON   MIYAGI   FIELD 

Bur  the  mystery  of  his  summoning  was  no 
more  than  this:  One  morning  the  regiment 
was  aligned  on  Miyagi  field,  in  parade  uniforms, 
and  in  such  a  tremendous  spirit  as  was  never 
before  known.  Yet  no  one  seemed  to  under 
stand  the  purpose  of  it.  And,  there,  at  about 
the  centre  of  all  the  glory,  was  Shijiro  Arisuga 
himself,  with  his  beloved  colors  once  more  above 
his  head  —  the  same  that  he  had  twice  fallen 
and  risen  with !  Pale  he  was,  and  ill-looking 
still.  And  the  bandage  on  his  head  yet  smelled 
of  drugs  —  for  this  excitement  was  a  bit 
too  much  for  him  after  the  quiet  of  China. 
Nevertheless  it  is  not  safe  to  let  you  fancy 
how  happy  little  Arisuga  was  —  nor  how  his 
heart  thumped.  You  will  be  likely  to  fall 
short  of  the  fact. 

Now,  far  away  on  his  right,  came  a  glittering 
cavalcade,  and  the  regiment  began  to  sing  with 

176 


176  THE   WAY  OF  THE   GODS 

the  bands  massed  in  his  front:  first,  his  own 
exultant  song,  then  the  Kimi  Gayo  —  hoarse, 
iron,  terrible  —  announced  the  coming  of  the 
emperor  of  Japan.  This  gave  way  to  acclaim, 
and,  to  the  mongolian  roll  of  on-coming  "Ban- 
zais !"  the  emperor  galloped  down  the  line,  with 
all  his  resplendent  suite,  and,  by  all  the  gods, 
stopped  directly  in  front  of  Arisuga  and  faced 
the  regiment !  At  that  the  singing  stopped 
and  the  playing  of  the  bands,  and  there  was 
that  silence  before  the  sovereign  which  is  more 
impressive  than  any  acclaim.  All  the  colors 
of  the  regiment  were  trooped  in  a  little  square 
before  Arisuga  into  which  the  emperor  rode  — 
all  the  colors  but  his,  whereat  he  wondered. 

To  his  last  day  the  little  color-guard  does  not 
know  precisely  what  happened  after  his  name 
was  called. 

" Shi jiro  Arisuga,  attention!  Forward!  To 
the  emperor!" 

Though  choked  with  amazement,  the  little 
color-guard  forgot  nothing  of  his  mechani 
cal  duty.  At  " Attention!"  his  flag  went 
straighter,  higher,  his  chest  bulged,  his  legs 
grew  stiff,  and  his  hand  flew  to  his  visor.  "For 
ward  to  the  emperor!"  and,  almost  uncon- 


ON  MIYAGI  FIELD  177 

scious  with  his  emotion,  he  yet  stepped 
straightly  forward  until  he  stood  directly  in  the 
Presence.  He  knew  that  before  him  was  a 
white  horse  with  very  pink  nostrils,  which  gently 
raised  and  lowered  a  hoof,  now  and  then.  That 
on  the  horse  sat  a  grave,  sad  man,  the  plumes 
of  whose  kepi,  as  he  looked  kindly  down  upon 
the  little  color-guard,  half  veiled  his  eyes. 

A  bit  of  a  smile  grew  there  as  his  sovereign, 
for  the  first  time,  saw  how  small  he  was.  Ari- 
suga  did  not  know  the  reason  for  that  smile, 
but  he  felt  it  all  through,  and  a  tear  started  to 
his  eyes.  For  you  will  remember  that  he  was 
not  meant  for  a  soldier,  but  for  simple  and 
beautiful  things. 

Then  Mutsuhito  spoke  to  him. 

"Shijiro  Arisuga,  the  emperor  is  proud  of 
such  sons  as  you !  Let  him  never  regret  his 
pride.  It  is  upon  you  and  such  as  you  that  the 
empire  rests  and  must  always  rest.  Be  stead 
fast  in  your  patriotism.  No  one  in  the  army 
bears  so  great  a  responsibility  as  he  who  guards 
the  colors.  With  them  in  sight  my  sons  will 
follow  anywhere  —  everywhere.  When  they 
are  down,  their  guiding-star  has  set.  For  your 
flag  is  your  whole  country,  all  your  ancestors, 


178  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

your  myriad  gods,  your  emperor  —  your  all ! 
And  every  eye  watches  it !  Twice  in  battle, 
you  have  raised  your  flag  when  it  has  fallen. 
The  circumstances  show  great  valor.  Your  em 
peror  has  a  thousand  eyes.  He  is  everywhere, 
and  always  he  knows  and  sees  all  the  acts  of  his 
sons.  He  knows  and  has  seen  yours.  And  for 
them  he  decorates  you  with  the  order  — 

Shijiro  Arisuga's  sick  head  drooped  upon  his 
breast  and  would  hold  no  more.  But  pres 
ently  he  knew  that  the  glittering  cavalcade 
had  wheeled  and  was  out  of  sight,  that  the  colors 
had  returned  to  their  places,  that  the  regiment 
singing  again  his  song  was  marching  home,  and 
that,  for  a  very  inadequate  reason  to  him, 
he  wore  a  medal  over  his  heart  and  was 
nominated  by  the  emperor  himself  Hero ! 

Well,  that  was  all.  But  for  the  third  time 
Shijiro  Arisuga  was  certain  that  the  happiest 
moment  of  his  life  had  come  —  as  well  as  that 
he  had  made  a  tremendous  fool  of  himself. 
The  tears  rolled  down  his  face  all  the  way  to 
the  barracks. 

But  after  that  do  you  suppose  he  would 
ever  let  the  flag  go  down?  Do  you  suppose 
that  he  could  love  anything  more  than  his 


ON   MIYAGI    FIELD  179 

colors?  Well,  you  are  to  judge  at  the  end. 
For  now  this  last  obligation  was  added  to 
that  which  first  made  him  a  soldier.  And 
the  gods,  his  ancestors,  his  father,  the  emperor, 
the  world,  looked  always  on ! 

Whatever  we  may  think,  it  was  true  that  this 
tremendous  moment  blotted  out  all  others. 
Long  ago  he  had  forgotten  Yone.  Now  he 
forgot  Hoshiko.  He  saw  before  him  nothing 
but  the  sun-gilt  path  of  glory.  The  emperor, 
the  flag,  the  gods,  the  shades,  his  father's  honor, 
were  in  his  thoughts,  and  nothing  of  love. 


THE   FADED    GLOET 


XX 

THE  FADED  GLORY 

BUT  presently  the  glory  faded  (alas !  noth 
ing  fades  more  quickly  than  glory ! )  and 
Arisuga  thought  again  of  Hoshiko.  Yet  it 
was  still  good  to  be  back  among  those  whose 
trade  like  his  own  was  war.  And  there  were 
pretty  words  to  listen  to  — which  made  the  heart 
swell  —  and  friends  joyously  to  caress  one,  and 
others  to  recount  one's  courage  —  for  at  least 
two  weeks :  then  all  was  as  before,  and  Arisuga 
had  only  his  medal  as  a  surety  that  all  the 
heroic  splendor  of  Miyagi  Field  had  ever  been. 
It  was  then  that  he  began  not  only  to  think  of 
but  to  wish  for  Hoshiko  —  her  hands  —  her  voice 
-her  laughter.  In  another  week  he  would 
have  given  it  all  for  these  !  And  he  had  sworn 
to  go  back.  But  how  could  he  —  now  ?  It  was 
like  open  treason.  Yea,  so  it  is !  Glory  may 
fill  our  lives  for  a  while,  but  presently  it  becomes 
smaller  than  a  woman's  steadfast  love  —  as  it 

183 


184  THE   WAY   OF  THE   GODS 

is  smaller.  Then  he  began  to  think  of  bringing 
Hoshiko  to  Japan.  There  was  that  theory,  you 
will  remember,  that  in  the  army  there  were 
neither  samurai  nor  eta  —  only  soldiers.  Only 
sons  of  the  emperor!  Understand  what  that 
means  —  to  be  a  son  of  the  emperor.  Yet  no 
one  but  a  Japanese  can.  Remember  that  the 
emperor  is  a  god ! 

The  yearning  for  Hoshiko  grew  upon  him 
until  he  knew  that  he  must  do  something  defini 
tive.  Either  she  must  come  to  him,  or  he  must 
go  to  her,  or  he  must  forget  her.  Forget  her ! 
For  three  nights  he  strove  to  keep  her  out  of  his 
thoughts.  When  she  came  he  would  sing  — 
shout  madly.  But  she  came  quite  easily  through 
the  songs.  Then  he  cursed  —  everything  which 
had  conspired  to  bring  about  his  unhappy 
status,  pausing  only  before  the  emperor.  She 
came  smiling,  seductive,  through  the  curses. 

Then  he  remembered  the  kindly  face  of 
the  emperor  and  took  a  moment's  hope.  He 
would  understand,  and  perhaps  permit  him 
to  live  in  China.  But  when  he  told  Zanzi 
his  hope,  that  officer  grew  savage :  — 

"What!  After  the  emperor  has  decorated 
you,  touched  you,  you  want  —  actually  want  — 


THE   FADED  GLORY  185 

to  go  away  from  him?  Adopt  another  coun 
try?  Sir,  if  he  should  know  that  you  have 
such  small  purposes,  I  think  he  would  recall 
your  medal." 

Then  he  thought  it  might  be  looked  at  dif 
ferently,  if  they  knew  that  he  was  married. 
Especially  if  they  could  see  Hoshiko.  Of 
course  this  was  impossible,  since  she  could  not 
come  to  Japan.  But  he  felt  that,  if  he  could 
interest  his  colonel  in  the  facts,  he  could  give 
him  an  adequate  description  of  Hoshiko.  No 
one,  he  thought,  need  know  that  she  was  an 
eta.  Having  secured  so  much,  he  would  inti 
mate  that  he  had  no  intention  of  adopting 
another  country,  but  that  the  air  of  China 
was  necessary  for  his  recovery :  that  the  retro 
gression  in  his  convalescence,  which  all  no 
ticed  and  spoke  of,  was  because  of  the  now 
unaccustomed  air  of  Japan. 

He  told  Colonel  Zanzi  tentatively,  not  that 
he  was  married  —  but  that  he  wished  to 
marry.  Zanzi  was  opposed  to  marriage  for 
soldiers. 

"I  am  sorry,"  grinned  the  colonel,  with  a 
shrug.  "Why  must  you  marry?  It  is  peace. 
Are  the  yoshiwara  and  Geisha  street  empty?" 


186  THE  WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

"I  have  given  my  promise,"  said  Arisuga. 

"Oh,  well,"  replied  the  colonel,  with  the  air 
of  dismissing  a  hopeless  and  useless  topic,  "if 
she  is  a  samurai  - 

"I  have  not  inquired  concerning  that," 
said  the  color-bearer,  untruthfully. 

"But  you  must,"  said  the  officer,  sharply. 

"The  old  order  is  no  more,"  quoted  Arisuga 
against  him.  "I  have  heard  you  say  your 
self,  Colonel  Zanzi,  that  in  the  army  there  is 
neither  eta  nor  samurai,  —  only  sons  of  the 
emperor." 

"In  time  of  war,  yes,"  finished  the  colonel. 
"We  need  them  all  then.  But,  these  are 
times  of  peace.  And  the  old  order  lives  always. 
I  have  never  said  otherwise.  You,  sir,  the  son 
of  a  samurai  who  died  at  Jokoji,  even  if  he 
died  on  the  wrong  side,  ought  not  to  need  to 
be  told  that.  Sir,  no  member  of  this  regiment 
marries  below  his  caste !  If  you  are  thinking 
of  such  a  thing,  I  regret  it.  Your  decision  lies 
between  this  woman  and  the  emperor,  who 
gives  you  life,  and  who,  when  he  accepts  you 
as  his  son,  takes  back  that  life  again  to  himself 
to  dispose  of  at  his  will.  You  cannot  have 
forgotten  the  samurai  obligation,  —  not  to  live 


THE   FADED   GLORY  187 

under  the  same  heavens  nor  to  tread  the  same 
earth  with  the  enemy  of  your  lord.  You  must 
leave  it,  or  the  enemy  must.  This  woman,  sir, 
puts  herself  in  opposition  to  your  emperor. 
She  is,  therefore,  his  enemy,  and  consequently 
yours.  Nevertheless  the  emperor  is  gracious. 
He  leaves  the  choice  to  his  sons.  But  they 
must  take  the  consequences.  Good  morning, 
sir." 

But  the  color-bearer  did  not  move.  He 
stood  there  still  with  his  hand  to  his  fore 
head. 

"Good  morning!"   thundered  the  colonel. 

And  even  that  could  not  frighten  him. 
He  was  momentously  deciding  between  the 
emperor  and  Hoshiko. 

"I  desire  to  say,  sir,  that  I  shall  not  marry," 
said  Arisuga. 

"I  am  glad  to  hear  it.  The  soldier  who 
marries  is  a  fool." 

And  therefore  the  little  color-guard  set  him 
self  to  fight  again,  and  to  the  end,  against  the 
invincible  thing  called  love.  It  makes  me 
smile  as  I  think  of  it.  Who  has  ever  van 
quished  it  ?  At  first  he  stubbornly  thought  of 
other  battles  he  had  fought  and  won.  But  he 


188  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

was  surprised  that  this  brought  no  courage  to 
the  new  kind  of  conflict.  She  came  in  the 
visions  of  night,  like  the  sappers  and  miners, 
when  he  was  least  defended  against  her,  smil 
ing,  beckoning.  He  could  see  her  and  touch 
her,  and  know  that  she  was  at  his  side. 

Now  all  things  mightily  conspired  to  make 
that  thing  he  had  once  thought  of  in  China  - 
a  temporary  alliance,  —  a  going  away,  an  easy 
forgetting,    another    marriage,  many  —  to   be 
more  fully  than  he  could  have  hoped. 

It  was  only  necessary  that  he  should  re 
main  in  Japan.  Time  would  do  the  rest.  He 
used  to  wonder,  in  the  night,  under  the  stars, 
how  long  it  would  take  her  to  understand, 
then  forget,  then  to  take  another  husband. 
He  never  got  over  this  latter  without  waking 
his  sleeping  comrade  by  a  certain  wild  vio 
lence  of  passion. 

He  thought  of  it  with  a  pitying  laugh  at 
himself  —  now  mad  to  go  back  where  he  was 
denied  the  going  —  to  have  her  there  who  must 
not  come  —  whose  coming  would  be  rum. 

One  night  he  spoke  wildly  to  this  comrade :  - 

"I  tell  you  that  she  will  never  forget,  never 
take  another :  if  she  did,  I  would  kill  her ! 


THE   FADED  GLORY  189 

But  I  am  the  liar  and  the  scoundrel  —  I.  She 
chose  me."  Concerning  which  interruptions  of 
his  repose  his  sleeping-mate  continued  to  com 
plain  to  headquarters. 

A  dozen  times  he  sat  down  to  write  to  her. 
But  what  comfort  was  that  ?  It  was  herself  he 
wanted :  the  bodily  presence  which  could  softly 
touch  him,  the  voice  which  could  gently 
speak  to  him,  all  the  beauty  which  he  might 
see!  A  dozen  times  he  threw  the  unfinished 
letter  from  him. 

And  so,  finally,  this  fight  against  Hoshiko 
became  a  rout.  Every  night,  when  he  should 
have  slept,  it  came  on  —  like  an  enemy  who 
knew  the  time  and  place  of  the  weakness  of 
his  adversary.  If  there  had  only  been  no 
nights  to  fight  through !  At  last  his  bunk- 
mates  so  complained  of  him  that  the  doctor 
sent  him  to  live  out  of  the  barracks,  where  he 
would  disturb  no  one.  He  had  a  small  house 
to  himself. 

But  in  this  new  solitude  she  came  and  stayed 
and  possessed  him.  She  made  him  again  to 
possess  her.  She  was  there  always.  The  night 
mattered  no  more.  He  saw  her  eyes  in  the 
dusk,  heard  her  voice  in  daylight.  He  often 


190  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

parted  the  shoji  —  sometimes  to  find  vacancy 

-  when  his  mood  was  practical  and  he    had 
slept  well;  but  often  when  he  had  not  eaten 
or  slept,  and  the  visions  came  —  to  have  her 
swiftly  in  his  arms. 

Presently  a  certain  infidelity  came  and 
lodged  in  him,  and  the  knowledge  of  it  spread 
through  the  army. 

"What  a  spirit  must  that  be  of  the  emperor 

-  the  gods  —  the  augustnesses  —  even  a  father 
waiting  in  the  Meido  —  which  would  not  permit 
him  to  have  one  small  woman !" 

That  is  what  he  publicly  said.  And,  worse, 
he  had  once  thought  of  throwing  his  medal 
into  the  moat  near  by  and  of  escaping  to  China. 
Of  deserting  the  emperor  he  had  doubly 
sworn  to  serve.  His  gods,  his  father,  the 
shades.  Perhaps  there  was  but  one  thing 
in  the  old  days,  worse  than  the  eta  —  the  de 
serter.  He  thought  of  this  and  took  terrible 
pause. 

Finally  it  was  known  in  the  army  that 
Arisuga  was  mad  —  quite  mad.  The  wound 
in  his  head  had  done  it.  His  talk  was  of  a 
woman :  an  houri,  if  ever  there  was  one,  should 
his  talk  of  her  be  believed.  He  had  cursed  the 


THE    FADED   GLORY  191 

gods,  reviled  the  augustnesses,  the  spirit  of  his 
father,  the  emperor  who  had  pinned  the  medal 
on  his  coat.  Certainly  Shijiro  Arisuga  was 
mad.  He  himself  heard  this,  and  thought  to 
take  a  cunning  advantage  of  it.  If  he  were 
mad,  he  would  be  invalided,  and  then  he  would 
see  China  again. 


IN  THE   ANDON'S   LIGHT 


XXI 

IN   THE  ANDON'S   LIGHT 

BUT  one  night  there  came  a  gentle  tapping 
on  his  shoji  —  like  the  dream.  He  sat  up  and 
listened.  There  was  more  tapping  —  still  like 
the  dream.  And  then  a  whispered  voice  —  not 
the  dream  —  which  woke  him  to  mutiny :  — 

"Ani-San  !  Beloved  !  Do  you  no  more  wish 
me  ?  Oh,  it  is  so  long  —  so  long !  And  we 
have  walked  —  walked  —  walked.  I  would 
rather  know  and  die.  At  first  I  thought  you 
dead  —  you  said  nothing  but  that  should  keep 
you  from  me  —  death  !  death  !  And  I  could 
not  sleep  —  I  never  slept !  At  last  I  decided 
to  come  and  get  your  body,  steal  it  out  of 
the  grave,  and  take  it  back  with  me,  where 
I  might  weep  over  it  and  make  the  offer 
ings  —  only  your  dear,  dead  body  I  have 
loved  and  which  has  loved  me  —  lain  down  by 
my  side,  held  me  in  its  arms !  And  so  I  came 
with  Isonna  —  faithful  Isonna  is  here  —  and 

195 


196  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

learned  that  you  are  not  dead,  and  all  the  glory. 

0  beloved !    My  soul  swells  with  joy  of  you. 
You,  mine,  once  mine,  so  glorious  in  the  eyes 
of  our  country !    For,  oh,  Ani-San,  it  is  my 
country,  too !    They  shall  not  take  that  from 
me,  though  it   makes  me    an    outcast.    And 
my  feet  touch  it  now.     My  country  !    Nippon ! 
Nippon  !    After  all  the  evil  years  of  exile.     My 
emperor !    My    gods !    Forgive    me,   beloved, 
but  it  must  all  come  out  of  my  heart,  or  it  will 
burst.     I  know  you  are  there.     I  know  you 
listen  !    I  see  —  touch  —  adore  —  your  shadow. 

1  have  seen  you !    I  have  hid  in  the  trees  - 
Isonna  and  me  —  for  three  days,  until  we  are 
very  hungry  and  have  begged  rice.     Three  times 

-  on  each  day  —  we  have  seen  you.  Three 
nights  we  have  watched  your  dear  shadow. 
Once  it  prayed  and  then  rushed  upon  the  out 
side  and  spoke  loudly  to  the  heavens  —  words 
which  we  could  not  hear.  Were  they  of  me  ? 
Were  they  hate  or  love  ?  To-night  I  touch  your 
shadow  —  put  my  lips  upon  it  on  the  paper. 
For  —  yes  —  I  know  that  is  all  I  am  ever  to 
have:  the  shadow  of  you.  You  do  not  wish 
me !  That  is  what  my  mother  said ;  and 
laughed.  She  struck  me  and  said  her  words 


IN   THE  ANDON'S  LIGHT  197 

concerning  you  had  all  come  true.  Ah,  pardon, 
lord.  What  matter  that  ?  It  is  three  days ! 
Three  days !  We  could  not  die  until  the  moon 
was  dark;  for  some  one,  passing,  might  see 
and  find  our  bodies.  But  I  am  glad  for  those 
three  days.  Now  the  moon  is  gone  —  the 
moon  which  sees  our  deeds  and  tells  them  to  the 
gods  of  night;  and,  lord,  only  to-night,  when 
the  moon  was  gone,  could  I  come  to  you  to  say 
farewell  —  Ani-San,  to-night  we  die  —  Isonna 
and  I.  Unless  you  still  wish  me  ?  No ! 
Pardon  that.  But  —  if  you  should !  Ah !  if 
you  should!  Speak  one  word  though  it  be 
Go !  Only  one  word,  that  I  may  die  in  the 
blessed  sound  of  your  voice  !  Oh,  it  has  been 
so  lonely !  For  you  first  taught  me  how  to 
be  happy  —  to  laugh,  to  love.  And  then  you 
went,  and  took  it  all  away  —  all,  all  away. 
Beloved,  you  do  not  wish  us —  No?  so,  to 
night  we  die.  We  shall  not  harm  you,  even 
in  our  death.  As  long  as  this  little  paper 
wall  is  between  us  you  are  not  contaminated 
even  while  we  live.  No  one  will  know  us  in 
this  far  land ;  and  we  shall  die  where  no  one 
will  ever  find  us ;  only  the  gods,  only  the  pity 
ing  gods.  So  we  do  not  harm  you  in  coming 


198  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

here.  We  would  not  have  come  had  we  known 
you  lived.  Ani-San,  it  is  finished  —  all  quite 
finished;  you  wish  me  no  more.  I  hear  no 
blessed  word.  Lo  !  I  listen  —  listen  with  my 
soul  —  but  I  hear  no  word  !  All  the  gods  in 
all  the  skies  bless  you.  All  the  gods  in  all 
the  skies  make  you  happy.  All  the  gods  in 
all  the  skies  make  you  glorious.  Ani-San,  be 
loved,  farewell,  forever  and  forever,  farewell!" 

At  first  the  little  color-bearer  put  his  hands 
madly  to  his  ears ;  but  not  for  long.  Could 
you?  And  at  the  end  he  heard  her  sink 
slowly  to  the  earth,  slipping,  sighing,  down  the 
shoji. 

At  that  moment  he  would  have  had  her  if 
the  empire  itself  had  fallen  for  it.  He  did  not 
wait  to  part  the  shoji.  He  plunged  through 
them  as  he  had  done  once  before  in  China. 
And  there  at  his  feet  was  the  pitiful  little  heap. 
Too  numb  she  was  to  be  wakened  by  his  tumult. 

He  carried  her  within  and  laid  her  in  the 
lamplight.  The  pretty  face  was  ghastly  with 
starvation.  The  feet  were  nearly  bare,  for 
walking  had  worn  out  her  sandals.  The  ki 
mono  was  one  he  knew.  But  it  had  been  in 
the  rain  and  had  trailed  many  tired  miles  in  the 


IN   THE  ANDON'S   LIGHT  199 

dust.  He  did  not  need  the  light  of  the  andon 
to  tell  him  of  her  sufferings.  Nor  even  her 
voice.  And  presently  when  she  woke  it  was 
not  of  that  she  told.  Indeed,  of  that  she  never 
spoke.  It  was  all  forgotten  in  that  waking  in 
his  arms.  And  all  she  said  —  all  she  ever 
said  of  it  —  was  to  ask  him,  with  a  breath,  if 
she  dreamed. 

She  slept  a  little,  then  woke  and  said  with 
terror :  - 

"Isonna!" 

' '  Yes,  beloved, ' '  answered  Arisuga .  ' '  Where 
is  she?  You  have  slept  sweetly." 

"Has  the  clock  struck?" 

"The  clock  has  struck." 

"Then  she  is  dead,"  whispered  Hoshiko. 
"She  was  to  die  first  —  when  the  clock  struck. 
And  I  was  sleeping  —  sweetly,  you  said. 
Oh,  gods !  Go  to  the  moat.  I  will  pray." 

At  the  moat  there  was  nothing  but  some 
pebbles  dislodged  where  small  feet  might  have 
tracked.  Some  fresh  soil  was  uncovered, 
where  two  large  stones  had  been  taken.  One 
was  gone,  the  other  waited  at  the  edge  of  the 
waters.  And  in  this  he  knew  how  the  manner 
of  their  death  had  been  planned.  Each  was 


200  THE   WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

to  take  a  great  stone  in  her  small  arms  and  wade 
into  the  moat  until  —  At  the  piteous  picture 
he  who  had  seen  death  by  thousands  choked  in 
his  throat  and  followed  Isonna  into  the  water. 
But  it  was  too  late  —  much  too  late.  And 
so  he  left  her  there,  where  she  had  chosen 
to  be,  for  him  and  for  Hoshiko,  quite  at  rest, 
with  her  burden  still  clasped  strongly  in  her 
arms,  and  only  a  little  prayer  to  Buddha  — 
nembutsu  —  Isonna ! 


TADAIMA  —  TADAIMA! 


XXII 

TADAIMA  —  TADAIMA ! 

IT  was  three  days  before  she  could  smile. 
Then  she  said  wanly :  — 

"What  will  you  do  with  me,  Ani-San? 
Must  I  die,  too  ?  You  cannot  go  back  to  China 
with  me." 

"By  all  the  gods  in  all  the  skies  we  shall 
part  no  more  !  We  can  die  —  yes  —  together 
—  but  part  never !" 

"Alas!  that  is  all  we  can  do  now,  beloved, 
for  I  have  harmed  you  in  coming  here." 

"You  have  brought  me  the  happiness  I  do 
not  deserve.  I  will  never  again  put  it  in 
jeopardy." 

But  you  are  to  understand  that  even  that, 
dying  together,  perhaps,  with  her  obi  binding 
them  close  to  each  other,  walking  arm  in  arm, 
into  the  sea,  or  the  moat,  until  they  could 
but  dimly  know  that  the  sun  was  yet  in  the 
heavens,  on  through  the  green  water,  more 

203 


204  THE  WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

and  more  dim  unto  darkness,  peace,  sleep  — 
you  are  to  understand  that  this,  death  with 
him,  was  next  in  its  sweetness  to  life  with 
him. 

He  meant  to  go  to  the  colonel;  but  not  yet. 
You  remember  how  she  raped  those  few  days 
of  happiness  out  of  the  very  hand  of  fate  in 
China.  So  now  Arisuga  said  Tadaima ! 
Wait ! 

For  again  his  little  wife  had  to  have  a 
trousseau,  and  she  was  yet  very  weak  and  tired. 
And  on  the  way  she  had  sold  her  pretty  hair 
pins  for  food  —  these  had  to  be  replaced. 
But  so  potent  is  happiness,  that  it  was  not 
three  days  more  till  all  her  loveliness  had 
returned  and  bloomed  again — just  in  time  to  be 
adorned  by  the  new  kimono  of  blue  crepe,  and 
the  new  kanzashi  of  tortoise-shell  and  gold. 

Still  it  was  Tadaima  ! 

For  three  days  more  Arisuga  lived  in  his 
paradise  and  then  went  resolutely  to  the  colonel. 

"I  am  married,"  he  said  bluntly,  with  his 
salute. 

"What?"   roared  the  colonel. 

"I  was  married  when  I  was  here  before." 

Finally  the  officer  smiled.    That  is  the  way 


TADAIMA  —  TADAIMA  !  205 

he  would  have  been  likely  to  do  it  at  the  color- 
bearer's  age. 

"I  remember  that  you  said  you  did  not 
mean  to  marry !  You  were  married !  Well, 
well,  if  she  is  a  samurai  — " 

"She  is  an  eta,"  said  Arisuga.  "That  one 
in  China." 

"Ah!  After  a  little  while  you  can  divorce 
her.  No  one  need  know  of  it." 

"I  beg  your  pardon." 

"You  will  not?" 

"I  cannot." 

"You  understand  your  position  the  moment 
this  becomes  public?" 

"You  cannot  make  me  an  eta  in  the  army. 
I  am  a  soldier." 

"You  will  ask  for  a  furlough.  Time  indefi 
nite  upon  recall.  It  will  be  granted,"  said 
Zanzi,  coldly. 

This  was  the  color-bearer's  dismissal  from  the 
regiment.  For  a  moment  he  could  not  speak. 

"You  are  too  ill  for  service,"  continued  the 
colonel,  less  coldly.  "If,  however,  you  should 
think  it  best  to  take  my  advice,  let  me  know 
of  your  recovery." 

"I  thank  you,  sir,"  said  Arisuga,  chokingly, 


206  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"it  is  impossible.  The  flag  —  my  flag  —  ?" 
he  begged. 

"Good  morning,"  said  the  officer;  "I  will 
find  some  one  for  the  flag." 

But,  after  he  was  gone  the  colonel  deter 
mined  to  see  what  manner  of  woman  this  was 
who  could  make  Arisuga  give  up  his  flag. 
Orojii  had  said,  in  China,  that  she  was  pretty ! 
He  pictured  her  an  Amazon,  with  tremendous 
force,  and  painted  cheeks,  who  had  enslaved 
the  little  color-bearer,  and  he  meant  to  exhibit 
his  authority  against  hers  and  save  Arisuga 
from  her. 

"It  is  always  so,"  he  was  thinking  as  he 
arrived  at  the  little  house,  in  some  haste  to  be 
ahead  of  Arisuga,  "a  little  fellow  like  Shijiro  is 
sure  to  choose  some  woman  twice  his  size  for  a 
wife,  and  to  be  under  her  thumb  ever  after." 

You  may  fancy,  therefore,  his  surprise,  when 
a  little  flower  of  a  maiden  pushed  aside  the 
door  for  him,  and,  to  his  question,  announced 
that  she  was  Shijiro's  wife.  For  a  moment 
the  colonel  did  not  speak.  Tremendous  read 
justment  was  necessary.  In  the  meantime 
she  had  led  him  within. 

' '  Sit  down,"  she  said.   ' '  I  will  bring  you  some 


TADAIMA  —  TADAIMA  !  207 

tea.  My  husband  will  be  here  very  soon.  He 
has  gone  to  see  his  colonel.  Alas !  you  must 
sit  on  the  floor  in  the  Japanese  fashion.  We 
have  none  of  the  new  foreign  chairs ! " 

In  an  instant  she  had  the  tea  before  him. 

"I  do  not  care  for  tea,"  said  the  soldier. 
"I  am  Colonel  Zanzi." 

"His  colonel !"  gasped  the  little  wife.  "And 
—  and  —  you  have  come  to  be — " 

"As  kind  to  you  as  I  can  be,"  said  the  soldier, 
hastily.  "  Be  at  peace  ! " 

"Oh!  Is  it  true?"  The  tears  ran  over  her 
eyes  at  once.  "You  know?  And  yet  you  will 
be  kind?  Oh,  Jizo  —  that  is  my  favorite 
goddess  —  look  upon  you !  But  you  will  smoke 
a  little?  See,  here  is  my  own  pipe."  She 
cleansed  it  and  filled  it  and  put  it  to  his  lips, 
and  he  who  smoked  only  cigars  smoked  Hoshi's 
little  metal  pipe.  "And  he  is  not  disgraced? 
I  have  not  ruined  him  ?  No !  Or  you  would 
not  be  here  smoking  my  pipe.  You  would  be 
savage.  You  would  wish  to  kill  me.  Oh,  I 
know  he  is  the  emperor's  and  you,  also,  even  me ! 
I  know  how  that  is.  Everything  for  the 
emperor !  Wives !  Children !  Even  parents ! 
Why,  was  it  not  Akima  Chinori  who  killed  his 


208  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

child,  which  was  too  small  to  be  left  alone,  so 
that  he  might  obey  the  call  ?  *  I  have  given  you 
life/  so  says  the  imperial  call,  'now  give  it 
back  to  me.'  But  I  will  not  harm  him.  I  will 
help  him  to  be  a  soldier.  Oh,  I  am  brave ! 
You  cannot  think  how  brave.  It  is  only  wait 
ing,  waiting,  waiting,  that  I  cannot  endure. 
Do  you  know  that  we  were  married  away  down 
there  ?  And  that  Arisuga-Sama  left  me  to  go  to 
the  emperor  ?  Did  you  know  that  ?  And  that 
it  was  I  came  to  him?  He  did  not  bring  me. 
I  meant  to  die  here  without  harm  to  him. 
But  only  Isonna  died.  He  is  not  to  blame." 

"Who  was  Isonna?"  asked  the  soldier. 

"She  was  my  little  maid.  She  was  to  die 
first  when  the  clock  struck,  die  there  in  the 
moat  —  then  I.  But  first  I  came  to  see  his 
shadow  on  the  shoji  —  touch  it.  Say  fare 
well.  To  hear  a  word,  if  there  were  one. 
I  am  afraid  I  wept,  fainted  with  hunger,  and 
he  heard  me  and  took  me  in  and  kept  me.  He 
did  wish  me  !  He  did  I  But  Isonna  was  dead. 
Yes,  while  I  slept  in  his  arms !  Dead  for  us. 
The  tea  is  very  good,  excellency?" 

And  because  she  put  it  into  his  hands  with 
that  fear  in  her  great  eyes,  and  because  of 


TADAIMA  —  TADAIMA !  209 

that  shaking  of  the  little  hand,  and  that  chatter 
ing  story  in  the  quavering  voice,  and  those  tears, 
he  drank  the  tea,  who  drank  only  hot  brandy. 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  Isonna  killed 
herself  so  that  —  so  that  — " 

Even  the  grizzled  soldier  choked  at  the 
thought. 

"So  that  no  disgrace  might  come  to  him. 
And  I  —  I,  also,  should  have  died  —  before  he 
knew.  Then  he  would  not  have  been  harmed. 
As  long  as  the  thin  paper  was  between  us  he 
was  safe  —  safe  as  if  I  were  yet  in  China. 
But  you  do  not  know  how  sweet  that  was 
-to  sleep  in  his  arms,  to  wake  in  his  arms 
-with  the  words  he  spoke  that  night  he 
married  me  again  in  my  ears?  But  while  I 
slept  the  clock  struck.  Ah,  you  know  him 
only  as  a  soldier !  I  know  him  as  a  lover ! 
A  husband !  A  god !" 

Still  this  soldier,  brought  up  to  the  religion 
of  sacrifice,  thought  of  the  serving-woman 
sacrificially  dead  there  in  the  moat. 

"Was  Isonna  an  eta,  too?" 

"She  was  an  eta,  too,"  said  Hoshiko. 

"Gods!  And  we  think  you  lack  spirit  — 
courage  —  devotion !" 


210  THE  WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

"No!  We  are  brave '."she  said  piteously. 
"We  are  as  ready  as  you  to  die  for  the 
emperor!  If  you  will  only  learn  to  let  us!" 

"I  believe  you  !"  said  Zanzi. 

"Shall  I  tell  you ?"  she  begged.  "He  is  not 
at  fault.  Let  me  plead  for  him!" 

"Yes,  tell  me,"  he  said. 

But  she  could  only  repeat  the  old  story :  — 

"We  came  because  we  thought  he  was  dead 
—  he  said  that  only  death  should  keep  him 
from  us  —  to  take  his  body  back  with  us  — 
only  his  dear,  dead  body.  That  would  have 
been  no  disgrace.  For  the  Lord  Buddha 
does  not  permit  any  one  to  disgrace  the  dead 
who  cannot  help  themselves.  But  when  we 
knew  that  he  was  alive,  we  knew  also  that,  by 
coming  to  Japan,  we  had  harmed  him.  Then 
we  meant  to  die  without  him  knowing,  keeping 
always  the  thin  wall  between  us.  Where 
no  one  could  find  us  after.  But  I  could  not 
without  one  word  of  farewell  to  his  shadow  — 
only  his  shadow !  And  one  word  from  him  — 
if  there  was  one.  That  would  not  harm  him. 
Oh,  yes,  I  knew  that  I  must  not  touch  his 
body  in  Japan  !  But  his  shadow !  Was  that 
harm  ?  And  one  word  ?  Would  not  you  have 


TAD  AIM  A  —  TADAIMA  !  211 

touched  his  shadow?  And  he  did  wish 
me  —  he  did !  And  then  —  I  woke  in  his 
arms ! 

"But  the  clock  had  struck  while  I  slept. 
Eight.  And  that  was  the  signal  for  Isonna 
to  take  a  stone  in  her  arms  and  walk  into  the 
moat.  And  Isonna  was  faithful.  For  there 
he  found  her  afterward,  asleep,  with  the  gods, 
the  great  stone  in  her  arms.  And  that  one  I 
was  to  take  is  still  there,  on  the  edge  of  the 
moat,  waiting.  But  now  I  cannot  die.  He  has 
made  my  life  sweet  again.  Would  you  die  with 
life  all  sweet  again,  as  the  morning  glories  in 
the  morning  ?  So  the  stone  must  wait  there. 
Perhaps  he  and  I  shall  carry  it  together.  For, 
so  he  says,  we  shall  die,  together,  rather  than 
part  again." 

"You  shall  not  part.  Would  you  like  to  go 
to  America?"  asked  the  officer. 

"No.     Nowhere  but  here." 

For  America  to  her  was  the  country  of  the 
barbarians  —  a  horrid  waste,  where  no  flowers 
grew. 

"But  if  your  husband  should  go  there?" 

"Yes!" 

It  did  not  matter  then. 


212  THE  WAY   OF  THE  GODS 

The  colonel  rose. 

"Tell  him  to  come  to  see  me  again." 

"And  you  will  be  as  kind  to  him  as  you  have 
been  to  me?" 

"No,"  smiled  the  colonel.  "He  doesn't 
deserve  it.  He  doesn't  deserve  you."  But, 
then,  seeing  that  she  did  not  quite  understand 
his  pleasantry,  he  added:  "I  shall  be  as  kind  to 
him  as  I  can  be,  as  I  am  permitted  to  be,  for 
your  sake.  And  you  are  to  tell  him  that!" 

"Shaka,  and  all  the  augustnesses  bless  you !  " 

He  held  the  tiny  hands  a  moment  at  parting. 

"Once  I  knew  a  little  lady  like  you.  It  was 
long  ago,  and  there  is  a  tomb  for  her  in  Asakusa. 
Perhaps  she  was  not  like  you,  not  as  lovely. 
But  so  it  seems  now  —  after  the  years.  If  she 
had  not  died,  I  would  not  have  been  a  soldier." 

And  no  one  had  ever  heard  the  grizzled 
colonel's  voice  so  soft. 

She  sent  Arisuga  back.  But  she  did  not 
tell  him  that. 


THE   PITT   OF  THE   GODS 


XXIII 

THE  PITY  OF   THE  GODS 

THERE  seemed  little  kindness  in  Colonel 
Zanzi's  greeting  when  Arisuga  arrived.  He 
did  not  even  look  up. 

"You  will  be  transferred  to  a  Hakodate 
regiment,"  he  said  in  a  monotone;  " they  are 
ruffians,  but  good  soldiers.  You  will  report 
to  your  new  regiment  when  you  are  recalled. 
Your  furlough  must  be  spent  in  America  and 
in  communication  with  headquarters." 

This  was  exile,  but  mitigated  by  every  possi 
ble  circumstance. 

"Sir,"  said  Arisuga,  with  emotion,  "I  do 
not  deserve  this  consideration." 

"No,"  answered  his  colonel;  "but  your 
wife  does." 

Have  I  let  you  suppose  that  Hoshiko  accepted 
all  this  perilous  happiness  without  question? 
No  Japanese  woman  ever  does  that.  It  is 
true  that,  at  first,  there  was  no  thought  — 

215 


216  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

there  could  be  none.  The  gods  had  put  them 
both  suddenly  into  a  position  from  which  they 
could  not  retreat.  But  after  that,  when  thought 
came,  and  Hoshiko  knew  that  it  had  all  been 
for  her,  and  how  much  it  was  that  he  had  given 
—  then  she  began  to  prepare  her  recompense. 
To  you  it  would  have  been  a  strange  one,  but 
it  was  not  so  to  her.  What  she  had  taken 
beyond  her  share  from  the  universal  happi 
ness,  that  she  would  balance  with  such  suffering 
as  came. 

What  she  had  taken  from  him,  the  shade 
of  his  father,  that  she  would  restore. 
What  he  stood  in  danger  of  losing  because 
of  her,  that  she  would  insure  against  loss. 
And  the  gods  would  help  her.  For  they 
always  heeded  such  constant  and  faithful 
praying  as  she  meant  to  render.  At  last  she 
knew  that  they  would.  For  they  sent  her  a 
sign.  But  before  I  speak  of  that  I  must  go 
on  and  make  plain  what  her  purpose  came 
finally  to  be.  Nothing  less  than  to  make  sure 
in  some  way  (she  waited  on  the  gods  to  make 
the  way  plain  to  her)  that  since  she  prevented 
Shijiro  from  dying  for  his  emperor  in  his 
father's  stead,  his  reparation  should  come  about 


THE   PITY  OF  THE  GODS  217 

in  some  other  way  —  perhaps  some  way  not 
thought  of  as  yet  —  even  by  the  gods.  All  she 
could  do  now  was  to  pray  that  if  he  should  die 
the  small  white  death,  the  gods  would  send  her 
some  sort  of  reincarnation  in  which  she  might 
accomplish  his  purpose,  though  he  were  dead. 
And  of  course,  whether  she  survived  him  or  not, 
this  was  possible,  to  the  immortal  gods.  But  I 
think  she  had  no  idea  that  she  —  she  herself  — 
might  herself  be  the  instrument  —  that  the 
gods  meant  anything  as  strange  and  startling 
as  that  —  nor  that  her  reincarnation  might  be  in 
the  very  form  of  her  husband  while  she  yet  lived. 
She  would  not  be  likely  to  think  of  precisely 
that.  Until  that  day  of  the  sign  from  heaven 
itself  —  that  day  while  they  were  playing  as 
children  might  do  on  the  mats.  Their  feet  were 
against  the  groove  which  held  the  fusuma.  The 
little  soldier  reached  upward  above  his  head. 

"I  can  touch  the  other  mat,"  laughed  Arisuga. 

"And  I,"  laughed  his  wife,  doing  the  same. 

"What!"  cried  the  soldier.  "I  am  taller 
than  you  are." 

Then  Hoshiko  understood  that  she  ought  not 
to  have  said  that.  It  was  heinous  to  make 
herself  the  equal  of  her  lord  in  anything. 


218  THE  WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

"No,  lord,"  she  hastened  to  say,  "I  lied  — 
a  little  lie  —  while  we  sported.  I  am  sorry. " 

"It  is  no  lie,"  laughed  happy  Arisuga  once 
more ;  for  you  will  remember  that  all  her  dainti 
ness  was  then  his,  and  that  he  was  not  like 
other  Japanese  husbands;  "we  are  exactly  the 
same  height." 

"No,  no,  no,  lord,"  pleaded  Hoshiko,  who 
fearfully  knew  that  it  was  so,  "you  are  much 
taller  than  miserable  small  me. " 

And,  to  prove  it,  she  bent  her  knees  within  her 
kimono  and  stood  beside  him,  for  he  had  risen 
to  prove  the  matter. 

But  he  detected  the  bent  knees  and  straight 
ened  them,  and,  lo !  there  was  not  a  shadow  of 
difference  in  their  height. 

And  when  the  little  soldier  laughed  and  was 
very  happy  about  it,  she  laughed  too,  timor 
ously  at  first,  then  more  joyously  than  he. 
For  to  be  his  equal  in  something,  and  to  see 
him  happy  about  it  —  well,  she  supposed  that 
no  Japanese  girl  had  ever  before  such  felicity, 
and  perhaps  she  was  right. 

So,  in  their  playing  and  laughter,  he  cried: 

"And  I  shall  be  punished  for  my  haughty 
spirit  in  thinking  I  was,  and  you  shall  be 


THE  PITY  OF  THE  GODS  219 

rewarded  for  the  humility  of  yours  in  thinking 
you  were  not." 

And  the  manner  of  this  punishment  and 
reward  was  for  him  to  strip  off  her  kimono  and 
put  it  on  himself,  and  his  uniform  and  put  it 
on  her.  Oh,  you  may  be  sure  that  she  tried  to 
fly  in  her  terror  of  him,  that  she  fought  and 
wept  and  at  last  utterly  exhausted  had  to  let 
him  have  his  way  —  even  to  tucking  her  splen 
did  hair  under  his  military  cap.  She  lay  there 
happily  crushed  and  disgraced  until  he  had 
made  himself  so  like  her  that  she  hardly  knew 
him. 

But  she  would  not  see  herself  until  he  brought 
the  mirror  and  told  her  that  he  was  looking  at 
himself.  Then  she  looked,  and  it  was  true. 
With  staring  eyes  she  stood  upon  her  feet  and 
passed  the  mirror  up  and  down. 

Then  suddenly  she  saw  the  smiling  face  of 
a  god  in  the  mirror  also,  and  knew  that  this 
was  to  be  the  fashion  of  the  reincarnation  she 
had  begged  of  the  gods. 

She  whispered  her  husband  to  look  into  the 
mirror. 

"There  is  the  face  of  a  god  there !" 

Arisuga  looked  and  laughed,  but  saw  no  god. 


220  THE  WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

"It  is  the  reflection  of  your  Jizo,"  he  said, 
pointing  to  the  goddess  behind  her. 

But  Hoshiko  said  it  was  not  that.  For,  you 
see,  she  knew  what  it  was,  and  her  husband  did 
not  —  and  must  not  —  the  sign. 

Now  after  that  Shijiro  Arisuga  was  amazed, 
considering  the  terrors  out  of  which  it  had 
first  been  accomplished,  to  find  his  little  wife 
often  in  his  uniform.  And  more,  to  learn  that 
this  gentle  creature  was  mad  for  the  learning 
which  is  a  soldier's.  Of  course  it  was  great 
sport  in  this  happy  time,  and  Arisuga  taught 
her  all  he  knew !  —  how  to  stand  and  step  and 
march,  to  load  and  fire  and  intrench  herself, 
and  all  the  hoarse  songs  and  sayings  of  the 
army  —  among  others  that  battle  song  of  his. 
But  most  of  all  he  taught  her  how  to  carry  the 
sun-flag,  and  how  to  keep  it,  nay,  how  to  retake 
it  if  it  should  be  captured  —  which,  however, 
he  instructed  her,  illogically,  must  never  happen. 

"Our  method  of  advance,"  he  told  her,  "is 
never  in  thick  fat  lines — such  delectable  food  for 
the  shrapnel.  One  at  a  time  we  run  to  a  posi 
tion  we  have  fixed  in  advance.  Then  we  dig. 
Sometimes  there  are  as  many  as  five  all  scattered 
—  never  more.  After  digging  holes  we  make 


THE   PITY   OF   THE  GODS  221 

another  rapid  advance  and  do  the  same,  and 
then,  again,  until  there  are  three  chains  of 
holes  parallel  to  the  enemy.  Then  other  troops 
advance.  They  have  the  first  holes  to  hide  in. 
They  make  them  deeper  and  wider  and  advance 
as  we  did  until  we  have  a  solid  line  out  near 
the  enemy,  the  holes  being  joined  to  form  a 
trench.  And  by  that  time  there  are  two 
such  trenches  to  our  rear  for  those  who  support 
us  —  or  to  retire  to  — " 

Here  he  laughed,  and  added  impressively :  — 

"If  that  should  ever  become  necessary.  But 
a  Japanese  soldier  goes  only  in  one  direction  — 
forward  where  the  flag  is.  And  as  to  the  flag," 
he  went  on,  "that  goes  forward  with  the  first 
advance,  like  this — " 

He  rolled  it  into  a  ball. 

"But,  once  it  is  there,  the  lines  formed,  the 
advance  ordered,  it  is  raised,  like  this,  so  that 
the  artillery  know  where  we  are  when  they  fire 
at  the  enemy.  So,"  he  laughed  happily,  "when 
you  take  my  flag  forward,  you  will  go  like 
this—" 

He  made  her  run  with  bent  supple  back  the 
length  of  the  apartment. 

"Drop  like  this;   now  there  is  nothing  but 


222  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

a  small  lump  of  earth  to  see;  dig  like  this, 
lying  on  the  flag,  and  so  on  till,  out  there,  in 
the  first  trench,  you  raise  it  never  to  return 
with  it.  Then  you  will  hear  the  bursting  of 
the  gates  of  all  the  hells.  For  our  enemies  are 
stupid  and  never  understand,  until  they  see  the 
flag,  what  our  purpose  is,  then  they  waste 
their  ammunition  and  we  use  ours.  But  then 
it  is  too  late  for  them  and  it  is  ours  only  to 
go  forward  and  defeat  them,  led  by  the  sun- 
flag." 

There  was  nothing  of  this  which  the  girl  did 
not  treasure  up.  And  Arisuga  laughed,  she 
laughed,  and  he  never  asked  or  wondered  why. 


THE   LAND    OF   THE   BEAYE 


XXIV 

THE   LAND   OF   THE  BRAVE 

So,  presently,  they  were  in  America.  On  the 
way  over  they  were  quite  happy  once  more. 

"For  there  are  no  etas  in  America,"  said 
Hoshiko. 

But  there  was  the  Japan  Society  in  America, 
which  turned  its  back  on  them,  etas,  whereby 
they  were  left  in  a  strange  land,  with  only  a 
strange  language  and  half  pay,  all  of  which  would 
have  been  beggarly  enough. 

However,  that  is  how  it  happened  that  Mon- 
cure  Jones,  who  had  made  a  sudden  fortune 
and  wanted  a  Japanese  butler,  became  the 
happy  master  of  Arisuga.  He  had  found  them 
in  one  of  his  "raids"  upon  southern  New  York, 
where  they  had  a  little  room  and  were  starving 
and  studying  the  language. 

Arisuga  told  his  small  wife  one  day  that  the 
thing  called  divorce  was  going  on  in  the  Jones 
household  and  in  the  courts.  They  laughed 

Q  225 


226  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

together  about  it.  Divorce  in  America  meant 
something  very  different  from  what  it  did  in 
their  country.  It  appeared  that  it  had  been  pre 
ceded  by  tremendous  quarrels  in  the  house  of 
Jones,  of  which  Arisuga  was  a  witness,  and  an 
amazed  one.  For  Mrs.  Jones  had  rather  the 
better  of  the  quarrelling. 

"It  is  not  certain  that  the  divorce  will  be 
granted  by  the  judges,"  said  Arisuga. 

"Do  they  make  people  live  together  who  do 
not  wish  to?"  asked  his  wife. 

"So  it  seems,"  laughed  Shijiro. 

From  day  to  day  Arisuga  went  with  Jones  to 
the  courts  to  testify  of  the  quarrelling.  Then 
one  day  he  told  Hoshiko  that  the  divorce  would 
be  granted  because  of  the  cruel  and  barbarous 
treatment  of  Jones  by  his  wife.  But  even  then 
the  court  was  many  months  in  doing  what 
would  have  been  executed  in  a  few  minutes  in 
their  country. 

Finally  the  decree  was  perfect  and  Jones 
needed  a  housekeeper.  He  asked  Arisuga  if 
he  knew  of  one  as  efficient  as  he  was.  He  spoke 
to  Hoshiko.  An  income  was  more  and  more 
needed  to  provide  the  money  for  his  return 
when  his  summons  should  come.  For  it  had 


THE   LAND    OF   THE   BRAVE  227 

surprised  them,  in  the  auriferous  American 
country,  how  their  expenditures  grew  and 
their  income  failed. 

Well,  it  pleased  Hoshiko :  for  there  would  be 
only  so  much  more  time  in  her  husband's 
company.  Shijiro's  time  spent  with  Jones  had 
grown  much  more  than  the  time  spent  with 
her.  Indeed,  it  was  here  where  the  rift  began 
to  show  in  the  little  lute  of  their  joy.  For 
Shijiro  also  learned  some  habits  in  America, 
save  for  which  they  would  have  had  a  fair  start 
on  their  fund  for  the  return :  he  gambled. 

Jones,  it  seemed,  was  vexed  with  ennui. 
To  teach  Arisuga  how  to  gamble,  and  even  to 
let  him  win,  gave  him  both  employment  and 
amusement.  Indeed,  with  his  little  winnings, 
Arisuga  began  to  feel  opulent.  He  put  away, 
now  and  then,  something  for  his  return,  and 
was  more  often  in  good  humor.  And  as  he  was 
happy,  so  was  Hoshiko.  For  she  always  re 
flected  only  him.  Her  one  great  unhappiness 
was  that  he  was  so  constantly  away  from  her, 
and  more  and  more  so  as  the  time  went  on, 
so  that  often  he  forgot  to  come  home  to  her 
for  several  days.  Then  he  would  explain  that 
he  with  Jones  had  been  on  a  gambling  tour. 


228  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

So  the  little  unhappiness  which  had  threatened 
her  life  fled  quite  away  the  moment  she  knew 
that  Jones  wanted  an  honorary  housekeeper. 
In  her  innocence  she  did  not  reason  why  he 
might  want  to  set  up  such  an  establishment. 
Nor  did  Shijiro. 


JONES 


XXV 

JONES 

JONES  !  He  had  watery  gray  eyes  and  thick 
lips.  He  stooped  a  trifle  and  was  not  so  shock 
ingly  firm  in  his  gait  as  most  Americans  are. 
Yet  he  would  smile  betimes,  and  then  his 
mouth  seemed  armed  with  yellow  fangs. 

"Like  the  dragon  on  Hanayama,"  breathed 
Hoshiko,  shivering  herself  into  Arisuga's  arms 
the  night  after  she  had  gone  for  inspection. 
"He  smiled  at  me." 

"A  smile  is  good,"  said  Arisuga. 

"You  did  not  see  that  smile!  It  was  not 
good!" 

"Hereafter  I  shall  watch  it,"  laughed  Shijiro. 

For  Jones's  maiyi,  or  "look-at-meeting,"  as 
they  called  it  in  their  own  language,  Hoshiko 
had  dressed  her  hair  anew,  put  her  best  kan- 
zashi  into  it,  brought  out  that  worn  but  still 
beautiful  kimono  in  which  she  had  been  married, 
full  still  of  the  flower  perfume  of  her  maiden- 

231 


232  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

hood,  put  her  feet  into  the  tall,  ceremonious 
geta  of  her  own  land,  and  so  went,  quite  in 
oriental  state  (Shijiro  would  have  it  so),  in  a 
hansom  to  Mr.  Moncure  Jones.  No  wonder  he 
stared  and  put  on  his  glasses.  In  all  his  sordid 
life  Jones  had  not  had  so  fresh  a  sensation  as 
this.  In  all  his  life  he  had  seen  no  creature 
at  once  so  dainty  and  fragile  and  splendid. 

When  they  were  home  again,  came  that 
shuddering  of  which  I  have  spoken.  And  since 
Hoshiko  did  not  at  once  take  to  his  plan,  but 
shuddered  anew  whenever  it  was  mentioned, 
Arisuga  let  her  wait,  putting  Jones  off,  until  he 
could  convince  her  rather  than  command  her. 
For  more  than  ever  it,  presently,  became  neces 
sary  for  her  to  go  to  Jones.  Now,  strangely, 
since  that  day  of  the  look-at-meeting  Arisuga 
did  not  often  win.  On  the  contrary  Jones  did, 
until  there  was  not  only  nothing  for  the  passage 
being  put  aside,  but  a  huge  debt  which  appalled 
Arisuga.  So  that,  in  the  end,  the  only  argu 
ment  he  used  to  Hoshiko  was  of  Jones's  wealth. 

"  I  shall  win  yet  —  Jones-Sama  says  so  —  all 
I  have  lost  and  more  in  one  great  stake.  It  is 
always  so,  therefore  it  is  lucky  to  lose.  I  am 
not  downcast." 


JONES  233 

"But,  0  beloved,  that  smile!"  pleaded  the 
girl. 

" Nevertheless  Jones  is  rich,"  said  Arisuga. 

"  Yet  a  dragon !  "  cried  the  girl. 

"And  I  kill  dragons  which  frighten  little 
wives,"  laughed  her  husband,  without  fear. 
"Besides,"  he  said,  "it  is  well  to  remember 
that  otherwise  we  shall  not  have  the  money 
for  the  passage  when  my  call  comes !  You  will 
go  ?  Yes,  you  will  go.  Let  us  make  a  friend 
of  this  Jones." 

Suddenly  Hoshiko  saw  the  hand  of  the  gods 
in  this,  also,  and  went  to  Jones.  Was  not  this 
a  part  of  the  way  she  had  prayed  to  be  shown  ? 
And  she  had  impiously  rebelled !  Because  of 
her  rebellion  she  went  with  a  certain  alacrity. 

Jones  smiled  often  at  Hoshiko.  So  often  that 
Arisuga  could  not  but  notice  it. 

"The  yellow  dragon  of  Hanayama  covets  the 
dove  of  Arisuga,"  he  laughed.  "Yet  doves  are 
not  good  for  dragons.  This  will  be  better." 

He  handed  her  the  small  toilet  sword  which 
Japanese  women  carry. 

"I  have  heard,"  said  Jones  to  Shijiro  one 
day,  "that  Japanese  husbands  often  rent  their 
wives  to  pay  their  debts." 


234  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"That  is  true,  lord,"  bowed  his  little  butler. 

"For  a  year,  don't  you  know,  or  six  months, 
or  something  like  that?" 

"It  is  true,  lord,"  repeated  the  butler. 

"And  that  the  wives  really  like  it?" 

"True,  lord,"  answered  Arisuga. 

"They  don't  lose  caste  after  the  —  er  —  debt 
has  been  paid,  but  go  back  to  their  husbands  ?" 

"True,  lord." 

"Well,  that's  a  pretty  sensible  arrange 
ment.  You  Jap  chaps  are  always  sensible; 
and"  —  the  yellow  fangs  came  out  —  "I  am 
your  creditor  for  a  couple  of  thousand  dollars. 
Arisuga,  I  am  willing  to  be  so  paid  and  to  pay 
you  a  couple  more  thousand  than  you  owe 
me  !  Then  your  passage  will  be  safe.  I  don't 
believe,  now,  it  will  be  otherwise.  I  have  got 
you  in  too  deep  a  hole. " 

Jones  laughed  hoarsely  at  his  own  cunning. 

Arisuga  received  the  suggestion  as  he  would 
have  received  an  unimportant  business  propo 
sition. 

"I  will  consider  and  let  the  enlightened 
eijinsan  know,"  he  said.  This,  also,  as  if  it 
were  the  mere  oriental  courtesy  of  bargaining 
—  the  sloth  which  is  polite. 


JONES  235 

"I  guess  it  will  be  all  right,"  laughed  Jones. 
"Take  your  time.  No  one  is  proof  against  the 
blandishments  of  American  gold.  Even  oriental 
virtue  yields  to  it.  Don't  you  think  it  will 
be  all  right?"  -a  bit  anxiously. 

"Let  the  honorable  American  lord  so  think," 
said  Arisuga.  "I  will  consider." 

"I  shan't  be  niggardly,  understand.  If  you 
are  not  satisfied  with  a  couple  of  thousands, 
we'll  make  it  a  quartette.  She  is  about  the 
dearest  little  morsel  I  have  ever  seen." 

"Ha,  ha  !"  laughed  Arisuga,  with  American 
politeness,  this  time. 

"Ha,  ha  !"  laughed  Jones. 

And  Hoshiko,  taking  her  cue,  laughed  too, 
out  of  the  palest  face  she  had  ever  had.  For 
she  was  present  —  though  she  was  not  thought 
to  know  English  enough  to  understand  what 
was  said. 

But  that  night  Jones  was  awakened  by  some 
thing  strange  at  his  throat.  It  was  a  steel 
blade  —  and  an  ominous  Arisuga.  In  one 
hand  he  had  a  candle.  In  the  other  Hoshiko's 
sharp  little  sword  —  close  against  his  skin. 

"  Ha,  ha  !  "  laughed  Arisuga. 

Jones  was  in  no  laughing  mood. 


236  THE  WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

"Laugh!"  said  Arisuga. 

Then  Jones  brought  forth  a  sickly  cach- 
innation  which  stopped  at  the  first  note; 
for  it  made  the  sword  to  penetrate  his  skin. 

"  Lie  still  —  quite  still !  "  admonished  the 
Japanese,  with  deadly  quiet,  and  Jones  did 
not  move  a  muscle  for  a  moment,  which 
seemed  years. 

Then  the  light  went  out  and  Jones  expected 
death.  But  nothing  happened.  He  waited 
long.  The  sweat  poured  out  until  his  bed  was 
wet.  He  was  certain  that  he  felt  that  blade 
still  at  his  throat  —  and  the  little  stream  of 
blood  from  it.  But  there  was  no  more.  He 
was  not  dead.  At  last  he  cautiously  put  his 
hand  out.  It  encountered  nothing.  Then  he 
raised  it  to  his  throat.  Nothing  was  there. 
He  leaped  out  of  bed  on  the  other  side. 
Nothing  further  happened.  He  did  not  even 
call  for  the  police. 

So  the  opportunity  which  Jones  had  seemed 
to  offer  for  preparation  to  return  to  Japan 
when  the  call  came  vanished,  leaving  only  the 
vain  thing  he  had  taught  Arisuga  —  his  little 
skill  at  cards.  This  he  still  tried  to  use.  But 
though  he  sometimes  won  he  more  often  lost. 


JONES  237 

Yet  he  played  on,  certain  of  the  great  luck 
which  would  not  only  recoup  all  in  one  night, 
but  establish  his  circumstances  far  beyond  what 
they  had  ever  been.  It  was  the  old,  old  gam 
bler's  lust.  It  was  the  old,  old  consequence. 
Luck  seemed  cruelly  delayed,  and  they  fell  into 
desperate  poverty. 

And,  worse  than  all,  this  —  the  gambler's 
fetish  —  was  now  the  thing  which  possessed 
him.  But  though  he  loved  the  life  of  chance 
for  itself,  he  never  lost  sight  of  the  more 
and  more  frenzied  necessity  of  providing  for 
his  return.  For,  rumors  of  war  began  to 
hover  in  the  air.  Hoshiko  saw  less  and  less 
of  him.  And  he  often  forgot  her  for  days 
together.  If  he  were  mad,  for  another  reason, 
in  Japan,  he  was  mad  equally  in  America. 

Yet  nothing  was  saved;  always  such  pit 
tances  as  he  could  raise,  or  she,  were  spent 
upon  the  small  gambling  devices  in  which  the 
city  abounded,  no  matter  whether  he  had  food 
or  not.  Presently  his  life  was  that  and  no 
more:  a  vain  search  for  luck.  But  miserable 
as  it  was,  there  was  hope  in  it,  and  a  certain 
exhilaration.  He  was  like  one  who  has  no 
doubt  of  ultimate  good  fortune,  and  wakes 


238  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

daily  with  the  uplifting  thought  that  this  may 
be  the  grateful  day.  And  his  hope  and  hap 
piness  in  it  brought  hope  and  happiness,  in 
the  brief  whiles  it  reigned,  to  Hoshiko,  where 
happiness  came  of  late  not  often.  Nor  hope. 


THE   "TSAKEVITCH" 


XXVI 

THE   "  TSAREVITCH  " 

So  the  little  exiles  lived  and  starved,  and 
feasted  and  loved  on;  happy  sometimes,  sor 
rowing  more  often,  while  Japan  was  yet  at 
peace. 

Always  Arisuga  kept  his  address  at  head 
quarters,  and  always  he  waited  —  listened 
almost  —  for  the  call.  But  it  was  long  —  very 
long.  And  his  face  grew  sharp  and  his  eyes 
narrow.  And  more  and  more  in  the  waiting 
and  listening  he  forgot,  in  America,  Hoshiko 
-  his  Eastern  Dream-of-a-Star. 

For,  presently,  it  was  nearly  ten  years  of 
this  exile.  Ten  years  of  prayer  which  grew 
only  more  fervid  as  the  years  doubled  upon 
themselves,  and  the  hope  so  long  deferred 
made  the  heart  of  Arisuga  ill.  Ten  years 
of  yearning  for  their  own  country,  which 
fate  denied  them  and  which  nothing  but 
war  could  again  give  to  them !  The  heart 

R  241 


242  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

of  Hoshiko  sickened,  too.  But  it  was  thus 
because  Arisuga  more  and  more  often  for 
got  her  rather  than  with  the  homesickness 
which  she  suffered  as  he  did.  Yet  she 
guiltily  knew  that  while  there  was  no  war 
she  might  keep  him,  even  though  he  forgot 
her.  So  it  was  he  alone  at  last  who  prayed  for 
war.  It  was  sacrilege  to  obstruct  the  gods; 
it  was  impossible  to  pray  to  be  kept  from  her 
own  perfumed  land,  so  —  she  stubbornly 
prayed  not  at  all. 

And  then  it  did  come:  the  great  war  — 
though  not  as  he  had  fancied  it  would. 
Slowly  it  got  into  the  air.  Every  day  he 
spent  at  the  bulletins.  But  they  said  Japan 
would  not  fight.  Russia  was  getting  and 
would  get  what  she  wished.  She  was  too  great 
for  Japan.  And  some  of  the  newspapers  be 
gan  to  pour  contempt  upon  his  country.  She 
was  baying  the  moon,  one  said. 

"What!  are  there  no  more  samurai  in 
Japan?"  Arisuga  cried  out  to  his  wife  that 
night.  She  did  not  reply.  Her  silence  was  al 
most  guilt.  For  as  the  threat  of  war  went  on, 
and  as  Arisuga  grew  older,  he  valued  the  more 
what  he  had  lost  for  her.  "Gods,"  he  proceeded 


THE    "TSAREVITCH"  243 

with  a  hollow  laugh,  "I  am  not  a  samurai 
myself.  And  I  must  wait  my  call  to  be  even 
allowed  to  fight." 

" Forgive  me,  dear  lord,"  said  his  wife.  And 
the  words  and  her  attitude  recalled  that  other 
time  she  was  servilely  at  his  feet. 

' '  Rise  ! "  he  commanded  impatiently.  ' '  And 
do  not  call  me  lord.  I  am  no  more  —  nothing 
more  —  than  you  —  eta !  It  cannot  be  helped. 
We  must  suffer  it."  But  there  were  no  caresses 
—  there  were  never  any  now. 

Then  it  came,  quite  according  to  Arisuga's 
fancy  —  a  thunder-clap  from  the  heavens ! 
Togo  had  sunk  the  "  Tsarevitch  "  ! 

"At  last,"  cried  Arisuga,  that  day,  "I  am  a 
soldier  once  more,  if  not  a  samurai !  A  son 
of  the  emperor !  Banzai !"  And  that  night  it 
seemed  as  if  all  the  old  sweetness  had  come 
back  and  she  slept  in  his  arms  as  she  had 
used  to  sleep. 

"All  that  remains  now  is  the  call,"  he  said 
the  next  day,  still  happy. 

He  went  to  the  consulate  to  see  that  they 
had  his  address  correctly,  but  on  the  way  home 
he  remembered  that  there  was  no  money  for 
the  passage.  For,  strangely,  this  passion  of 


244  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

war  had  obliterated  that  other  passion  of 
chance !  He  ran  all  the  way. 

"I  must  —  I  must,"  he  said  roughly  to  Ho- 
shiko,  "have  money  for  the  passage!  When 
my  call  comes  I  shall  not  be  ready.  And  there 
is  none !" 

"I  have  not  forgotten  it,  lord,"  she  answered, 
giving  him  the  little  she  had  been  secretly  able 
to  save  from  his  gambling  for  the  purpose. 

Arisuga  counted  it.  He  did  not  even  stop 
to  thank  her  for  this  unexpected  sacrifice  and 
munificence. 

"Gods!  It  is  not  one-tenth,"  he  accused. 
"We  must  have  more  at  once.  Jones  liked 
you.  Why  not?" 

"Yes,  lord,"  said  Hoshiko,  growing  pale. 

"Remember  the  wives  of  the  forty-seven 
ronins.  They  gave  themselves  to  harlotry  for 
their  husbands'  cause." 

"Yes,  lord,  to-morrow,"  answered  the  trem 
bling  little  woman.  And  though  each  day  there 
was  a  little  more  money,  she  did  not  go  to 
Moncure  Jones.  She  could  not.  Some  things 
are  impossible ! 

All  day  she  was  gone,  and  he  thought  her 
there,  with  the  yellow-fanged  dragon,  and  did 


THE   "TSAREVITCH"  245 

not  care !  Nothing  had  hurt  her  heart  so 
much  as  that.  Each  night  she  came  back  to 
him  with  her  pitiful  wage  in  her  sleeve. 
Arisuga  might  have  thought  this  strange  had 
he  not  ceased  all  thought  of  her  —  that  Jones 
permitted  her  to  come  home  to  him  each  night 
with  each  day's  wages.  And  he  might  have 
noticed,  if  he  had  still  adored  the  hands  of 
satin,  that  they  were  stained:  now  with  red, 
now  with  blue,  yellow,  green.  But  he  never 
touched  the  hands  any  more,  and  was  become 
impatient  when  they  touched  him  void  of 
money.  But  the  little  wage,  the  sixty  or 
seventy  cents  which  he  seized  eagerly  and  put 
away  —  you  will  want  to  know  how  she  got 
them. 

Try,  then,  to  fancy  as  she  did  that  this  was 
the  beginning  of  her  punishment  for  the  hap 
piness  of  being  his  wife.  To  stay  away  from 
the  chance  of  being  with  him,  from  early  morn 
ing  until  late  night.  To  watch  the  slow-going 
clock ;  the  shadows  as  they  crept  up  the  wall  to 
the  red  stain  first,  then  the  blue,  then  that  pale 
yellow  one,  scarcely  to  be  seen  at  seven  o'clock; 
and  then  still  (for  her  wish  always  outran  the 
shadow)  to  wait  until  the  clock  in  the  cathedral 


246  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

struck  before  she  might  stop  making  muslin 
flowers  "for  the  happy  occasions"  and  go 
wanly  home  to  unhappiness.  She  was  a 
flower-maker  —  this  flower  of  another  land 
made  flowers  for  weddings,  christenings,  festi 
vals,  soiling  them  only,  now  and  then,  with  a 
tear.  Yet  no  one  had  ever  made  prettier 
flowers  "for  the  happy  occasions"  than  she 
who  had,  now,  no  happy  occasions. 

But  the  war  went  on,  on,  and  he  was  not 
called. 

"Gods  !  —  yes  !"  he  cried  to  her  in  his  mad 
ness.  "I  understand.  I  am  an  eta!  The 
damned  word  has  passed  all  through  the  army. 
It  stands  opposite  my  name.  It  makes  all 
my  oaths,  all  my  obligations  before  the  gods, 
naught.  There  is  but  one  hope.  They  will 
not  call  me  unless  the  last  man  must  be  put 
into  the  field.  Then  —  then  they  will  take  the 
eta.  Gods  of  the  skies  !  Gods  of  the  earth ! 
Gods  of  the  seas  and  caverns  below  —  let  it 
be  so !  Let  my  country  be  among  the  dregs 
at  the  bottom  of  the  cup  of  the  nations' 
despair !  I  —  I,  Shijiro  Arisuga,  will  bring 
it  —  lead  it  —  to  victory  with  my  flag !  I ! 
For  my  father's  ghosts  will  fight  with  me. 


THE    "TSAREVITCH"  247 

That  is  what  we  need!  The  ghosts  of  our 
ancestors  !  Who  can  vanquish  them  ?  And,  0 
ye  augustnesses,  — "  he  addressed  the  spirits 
of  his  own  ancestors,  —  "bring  it  about !  For 
ye  —  ye  alone  can  vanquish  this  upstart  foe. 
And  ye  must  —  ye  must  permit  me  to  make 
for  my  father  the  red  death !  Ye  must  —  ye 
must." 

Do  you  not  see  that  he  was  gone  quite  mad  ? 

Yet  every  insane  word  was  a  stabbing  ac 
cusation  upon  the  soul  of  Hoshiko,  for  whom 
it  had  all  been.  And  she  fancied  that  she  was 
no  more  worth  the  sacrifice  than  was  one  of  the 
morning-glories  which  were  now  only  a  memory. 
For  she  was  now  as  pale,  as  sad,  as  evanescent 
and  fleeting,  as  they :  those  morning-glories  in 
their  garden  in  happy  China,  unto  whose 
beauty  in  the  dewy  morning  she  had  once 
been  wont  to  liken  her  life  with  this  mad 
Arisuga.  Unto  whose  beauty  he  had  used  to 
liken  her  1 


THE   SMALL  WHITE   DEATH 


XXVII 

THE   SMALL  WHITE   DEATH 

HE  was  not  called.  The  war  went  terribly 
on.  The  bewildered  giant  was  buffeted,  dis 
membered,  at  will  by  the  shy  pygmy.  All 
about  Shijiro  fell  the  pink  tickets,  everywhere 
he  met  his  mad,  happy  countrymen  hurry 
ing  to  the  seaports,  looking  askance,  but 
nothing  came  to  him.  Perhaps  it  was  this. 
Perhaps  it  was  too  much  work,  exposure,  and 
anxiety.  Perhaps  too  little  food.  Perhaps 
all  of  these  together.  But  presently  he  was 
in  an  hospital  with  his  temperature  at  a 
hundred  and  five.  Hoshiko  was  there  always. 
And  sometimes  he  forgot  the  harshness  of  his 
later  life  and  fancied  that  it  was  again  that  day 
he  first  saw  her  by  the  Forbidden  City.  So  he 
would  live  again  through  all  that  happy  life 
until  he  came  to  the  battle  —  whence  he 
always  came.  Often  in  his  fancy  he  was 
in  the  very  presence  of  that  glorious  death 

261 


252  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

he  had  sworn  to  die.  Then  Hoshiko  was 
forgotten  again.  And  presently  she  went  out 
of  his  sick  mind  as  she  had  long  since  gone 
out  of  his  shattered  life,  and  nothing  but 
battle  lived  there.  She  did  not  strive  to 
recall  herself  by  so  much  as  a  touch.  So  the 
gods  wished  it  to  be ;  this  was  their  will.  She 
had  entered  upon  her  eternal  penance  for 
happiness,  and  she  did  not  again  question  its 
time  or  place  or  form.  The  happiness  was  gone. 
It  could  return  no  more.  But  with  the  sense 
that  she  had  impiously  raped  her  joy  from 
the  heavens  themselves  came  the  exultation 
that  not  even  the  gods  could  ever  take  that 
from  her.  It  had  been.  She  had  had  it. 

He  knew,  one  day,  in  a  sane  moment,  that 
he  was  not  leading  armies  to  battle  and  himself 
to  the  great  crimson  death,  but  with  an  im 
mense  horror  that  he  was  confined  within  four 
deadly  white  walls,  upon  a  narrow  cot,  not  the 
damp,  blood-stricken  earth.  That  there  were 
no  belching  cannons  in  front  of  him,  no  hell 
of  hoarse  shouts  behind  him,  no  curses  and 
death-groans  about  him,  but  quiet,  terrible, 
maddening,  only  the  still,  small  white  death  of 
women  and  children. 


THE   SMALL  WHITE  DEATH  253 

He  leaped  up  to  fly  from  it  and  made  this 
small  death  all  the  more  sure.  No  prayers 
to  his  father,  none  to  the  augustnesses,  none 
to  the  myriad  gods  availed.  There  he  saw 
the  still  small  white  death  of  women  closing 
down  upon  him  while  he  lay  inert,  bound  to 
his  bed. 

"This  is  my  punishment,"  he  whispered  to 
her  in  anathema;  "this  is  my  punishment  for 
taking  you  and  forgetting  him.  Yes,  even  the 
gate  of  the  Meido  will  be  closed  on  me.  I  am 
not  fit  to  meet  my  father.  He  must  still  wait. 
And  for  whom  ?  There  is  only  I !  Only  I  can 
redeem  him !  And  I  must  first  descend  —  and 
cleanse  my  sinning  face  in  the  waters  —  the  hot, 
hot  waters  of  the  hells  !  And  when,  after  many 
lives,  I  meet  my  father — " 

His  mind  could  not  endure  the  horror  of  this. 
But  he  turned  his  fury  upon  her. 

"For  you,"  he  cried,  "such  a  thing  as  you! 
Eta,  jigoku  onna !  Hell  woman !  Yes,  you 
came  to  me  in  the  form  of  a  goddess.  But  the 
hell  woman  does  that.  And  now  that  death 
is  here  my  vision  sees  through  that  and  you 
are  a  skeleton  with  talons  —  with  a  beak  - 
with  hell's  hollow  laughter  —  the  devils  sent 


254  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

you  to  tempt  me  and  I  fell  —  and  am  lost 
-  my  father's  soul  is  lost  —  and  you  laugh  — 

Alas  !  she  did  not  laugh  —  she  sobbed.  For 
that  was  one  of  the  days  when  the  flesh  was  weak. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  tempted  you;  I  am  all 
you  say !" 

He  fell  into  coma  then  and  remembered  no 
more:  leaving  her  here  on  earth  with  those 
fearful  words  in  her  heart  to  remember  which 
had  loved  him  only  too  well.  Sometimes  she 
half  believed  them.  Once  she  crept  from  his 
side  to  look  in  the  glass.  She  saw  no  talons 
or  beak,  but  a  wanness  which,  indeed,  sug 
gested  a  skeleton. 

He  knew,  before  his  wits  left  him,  that  the 
objective  of  the  Guards  was  the  Yalu.  And 
now  he  fancied  himself  gloriously  leading  them. 
But  half-sane  moments  came  in  which  he 
would  again  suspect  the  four  white  walls. 

"Gods!"  he  whispered  hoarsely,  in  one  of 
these,  "am  I  going  to  the  small  white  death 
of  women  and  children  ?  Have  I  only  dreamed 
that  I  was  still  leading  them?" 

"No,"  said  his  wife.  "This  is  the  dream  — 
these  white  walls.  You  are  to  die  the  great 
red  death.  God  has  told  me." 


THE   SMALL   WHITE  DEATH  255 

"Is  it  so?" 

He  gazed  distractedly  about  and  still  thought 
he  saw  the  walls. 

"It  is  as  I  say." 

He  gripped  her  hands. 

"By  all  the  gods?" 

"By  all  the  gods,"  she  swore. 

Then,  again,  for  the  last  time,  came  full 
delirium  —  and  again  it  came  in  red. 

"You  have  told  me  true!"  he  shouted. 
"  There  the  devils  come  !  On,  on,  on  !  Banzai! 
On  !  Nippon  Denji !  On  !  Ah,  my  sword  slips 
at  the  handle  —  it  is  red !  And  the  staff  of  my 
flag,  too!  A  little  earth!"  He  rubbed  his 
palms  on  the  bed  covers  as  if  they  were  the 
ground,  and  clenched  his  hands  again.  "Ah, 
now  we  are  on  them  !  Mutsushima  !  Up,  up, 
up !  Too  early  to  die !  You  have  not  killed 
enough !  Up,  Banzai !  The  gods  will  not 
redeem  your  samurai  vow  with  so  few 
dead  enemies  of  the  emperor  to  your  credit !" 
Then  he  must  have  been  struck.  "Father! 
Father!"  he  cried,  and  held  out  his  hands. 

After  that  he  lay  as  one  dead  for  a  long  time, 
then  woke  with  slow  doubt  to  find  himself 
still  without  the  heavens. 


256  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

"I  have  not  killed  enough.  That  is  it. 
There  must  be  many  more  before  I  can  see  my 
father's  face.  Many  more  because  —  because 
I  married  an  eta  —  yes,  an  eta  seduced  me. 
Did  you  know  her?  She  was  a  hell  woman. 
She  kept  me  from  my  father.  Did  you  know 
her?" 

He  stared  up  at  her  with  half  recollection, 
and  then  went  on  to  his  battles. 

In  one  of  them  he  lost  his  colors.  No  one  has 
ever  suffered  a  sharper  agony  than  he  —  until 
they  were  retaken. 

"But  — the  flag!  The  flag!  I  am  hit! 
Here  !  Not  much !  Gods  in  the  skies !  There 
it  is !  They  have  it !  The  cursed  dogs ! 
They  have  touched  it !  Defiled  it !  Come 
with  me  —  Kondo  —  Musima  —  Tani  —  Ichi- 
mon  —  now !  At  them ! " 

And  she  knew  that  he  had  retaken  the  flag 
and  was  bringing  it  gloriously  back ;  each  act 
was  faithfully  fought. 

But  then  he  missed  it.  He  looked  in  his 
hands. 

"Do  you  see  my  flag?" 

"Yes,"  she  cajoled,  "it  is  here." 

But  she  did  not  convince  him,  and  he  slept 


THE   SMALL   WHITE   DEATH  257 

under  his  opium  unhappily.    He  thought  some 
times  that  the  enemy  had  again  taken  it. 

When  he  awoke  next  morning,  still  unhappy 
and  in  doubt  (he  had  not  forgotten  it),  the 
flag  was  in  his  hand.  There  was  not  one  in 
America  for  the  little  wife.  But  that  night 
she  made  one.  He  shouted  with  sudden 
strength  as  he  gripped  it  and  kept  it  in  his 
hands  until  they  could  feel  no  more.  And  then 
with  it  lashed  to  the  foot  of  his  bed  he  lived  the 
little  remnant  of  his  life  in  its  glory,  and  in  sight 
of  its  crimson  and  white  went  out  —  mad  with 
the  supremest  ecstasy  a  Japanese  can  know  - 
out  in  the  great  red  death  to  another  reincar 
nation,  at  what,  for  the  fourth  time,  he  must 
have  thought  the  happiest  moment  of  his  life. 

And  then  —  shall  I  tell  it?  —  his  call  came. 

And  a  letter  from  Zanzi,  now  a  general  com 
manding  a  brigade.  Almost  as  one  would 
write  of  love,  he  wrote. 

"Come  back,  eta,"  it  said  joyously;  "we 
need  you  now.  You  shall  not  go  to  the  Hako 
date  men.  Every  one  of  us  clamors  for  you  at 
the  colors.  Come  !  It  is  war.  Your  doctrine 
prevails.  There  are  now  neither  samurai  nor 
eta,  but  only  sons  of  the  emperor.  Come !  We 


258  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

are  going  to  a  glorious  victory.  Take  your  share. 
Your  penance  is  complete.  Your  exile  is  fin 
ished.  Come,  the  emperor  himself  calls  his  sons 
to  die  for  him  !  Come !  The  flag  waits.  Come  1 

"ZANZI." 


PRESENT   FOR  DUTY 


XXVIII 

"PRESENT  FOR  DUTY" 

OF  Hoshiko  I  do  not  speak  —  I  have  not 
spoken  —  in  these  last  days.  I  cannot.  I  am 
near  her  heart  as  I  write.  She  for  whom 
everything  had  been  had  nothing  —  was  eter 
nally  to  have  nothing.  Yet  it  remained  for 
her  now  to  make  all  that  be  which  would  have 
been  —  but  for  her.  The  way  of  the  gods 
was  quite  plain. 

There  was  no  oath  to  this  effect,  no  tragic 
undertaking  before  the  mysterious  gods.  It 
became  simply  her  life.  Nothing  else  was  pos 
sible  with  the  existences  which  remained  but 
to  make  all  true  which  ought  to  be  true  — 
which  would  have  been  true  —  but  for  her  hap 
piness.  She  had  had  that,  and  now  was  to 
come  the  recompense  which  the  gods  always 
demanded.  And  the  plan  of  it  had  not  con 
sciously  grown ;  it  had  been  there  —  inside 
—  always.  Save  that  when  she  knew  he  was 

261 


262  THE  WAY   OF   THE  GODS 

to  die  the  small  white  death,  all  the  details 
formulated  themselves  in  her  mind  there  at 
his  side,  fixed,  she  had  no  doubt,  by  the  gods. 

We  know  now  that  the  war  was  fought  to  its 
end  in  the  council  chambers  in  Tokyo  long  be 
fore  that  torpedo  sank  the  "  Tsarevitch."  This 
is  the  curious  fashion  of  the  Eastern  mind :  to 
see  the  end  before  the  beginning.  So  now 
all  that  was  to  follow  formed  itself  in  the 
mind  of  Hoshiko  as  if  it  were  already  done  and 
she  saw  it  not  from  the  beginning  but  from  the 
end.  The  means  to  make  it  be  would  have 
puzzled  us.  They  puzzled  her  not  at  all.  She 
knew  that  suffering  lay  there ;  but  no  suffering 
could  matter  if  the  end  was  achieved  and  that 
was  safe. 

In  due  time  General  Zanzi  received  a  cable, 
saying :  — 

"Keep  colors.    Coming. 

"SHIJIRO  ARISUGA." 

Then  Hoshiko  went  to  the  house  of  Moncure 
Jones  for  the  second  time.  The  place  of  horror 
to  her.  That  day  she  dressed  once  more  in  her 
best  kimono,  —  she  had  always  kept  the  white 
one,  —  and  put  the  new  kanzashi  again  in  her 
hair,  (which  you  will  remember  Arisuga  bought 


"PRESENT  FOR  DUTY"  263 

for  her  the  day  after  she  had  knocked  on  his 
shoji,)  and  painted  her  face  and  eyes  to  hide 
their  hollowness,  and  put  upon  her  dainty  little 
body  the  last  of  the  " flower  perfume"  -  which 
every  Japanese  girl  saves  from  her  marriage 
for  her  burial  so  that  she  may  appear  fittingly 
as  a  bride  indeed  before  the  gods  above.  In 
this  matter  Jones  must  be  propitiated  —  made 
sure.  She  did  not  forget  their  last  parting.  So 
she  went  to  him  arrayed  and  adorned  as  she 
had  once  meant  to  go  before  the  gods. 

And  she  remembered  again,  and  was  re 
peating  their  last  adjuration  to  fealty  as  she 
stepped  upon  the  sill  of  Jones's  door,  those  forty- 
seven  ronins  whose  wives  lent  themselves  to 
harlotry  that  their  husbands  might  the  better 
achieve  their  cause.  Are  they  not  upon  brass 
to-day,  though  a  thousand  years  have  passed? 
Are  their  wives  not  properly  forgotten  ? 

So  when  she  had  come  to  Jones's  house  she 
smiled  and  was  very  gay,  like  a  woman  of  joy, 
as  she  had  often  read  had  been  the  way  of 
the  wives  of  the  forty-seven,  and  said :  — 

"You  wish  me?" 

"Wish  you!"  cried  the  delighted  Jones. 
"I  have  never  wished  for  anything  so  much  in 


264  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

all  my  life.  I  have  never  missed  any  one  so 
much.  It  was  beastly  of  you  to  go  away  in  that 
fashion.  I  haven't  married  yet." 

Hoshiko  was  very  impatient  inside,  but  out 
side  she  smiled. 

"You  wish  me?"  she  repeated. 

"Yes!  But  that  beastly  husband  of  yours, 
with  his  knives  — " 

"He  —  is  —  dead,"  said  the  little  woman, 
forcing  each  word  out  of  her  heart  with  agony, 
laughing  shrilly  at  the  end  like  a  creature  of 
pleasure. 

"Ha,  ha  !"  laughed  Jones. 

"Ha,  ha,  ha,"  echoed  Hoshiko. 

"You're  as  glad  as  I  am!" 

"Yes,"  smiled  Hoshiko. 

"Sure  he's  dead?" 

"By  your  large  God!"  swore  the  laughing 
wife. 

"Oh !  I  understand.  And  believe  you,  too  ! 
All  right,  my  little  Japanese  doll,"  cried  the 
delighted  Jones.  "Here's  money." 

What  followed  I  may  not  tell:  save  that 
Hoshiko  made  a  cold  bargain  —  Jones  calls  it 
his  Japanese  marriage  to  this  day,  —  whereby 
she  got  a  great  deal  of  money  in  a  short  time. 


"PRESENT   FOR  DUTY"  265 

The  next  day  Zanzi  got  this  cable :  — 

"Keep  colors.    Starting. 

"SHIJIRO  ARISUGA." 

Presently  (it  seemed  years,  but  it  was  only 
a  little  while)  the  time  was  come,  and  Hoshiko 
cut  her  hair,  rubbed  her  face  each  morning 
with  a  rough  brush,  put  on  Arisuga's  uniform, 
pinned  his  medal  over  her  heart,  and  sent  her 
last  cable :  — 

"Keep  colors.     Aboard. 

"SHIJIRQ  ARISUGA." 

And  so  it  was  that  the  morning  the  Imperial 
Guards  started  for  the  Yalu,  Shijiro  Arisuga, 
though  dead  in  America,  answered  to  his  name 
at  Sendai. 

But  how  that  was  accomplished,  I  must  stop 
my  story  to  tell. 


THE  REINCARNATION  OF  SHIJIRO 
ARISUGA 


XXIX 

THE  REINCARNATION  OF  SHIJIRO  ARISUGA 

FOR  I  think  that  you  will  wish  to  know  what 
Hoshiko  did  to  appear  learned  in  the  trade  of 
the  soldier  before  she  joined  the  Guards.  But 
it  is  not  easy.  For  I  am  very  near  her  now.  And 
the  satin  hands  must  be  as  leather;  the  tiny 
feet  must  often  leave  their  prints  in  blood  on 
the  snow;  the  plump,  pink  cheeks  must  be 
pounded  into  caverns  and  scarred  with  wounds ; 
the  nails  must  be  deliberately  torn  and  broken 
from  the  exquisite  hands;  the  beautiful  hair 
must  be  shorn.  And  last  and  hardest  to 
tell,  in  her  forehead  must  be  made  a  ragged 
scar  like  that  Arisuga  got  at  Pekin  —  the  one 
which  had  brought  him  to  her.  That  I  shall 
tell  first  —  the  making  of  the  wound. 

For  a  long  time  she  studied  it.  This  all 
men  knew  and  it  must  be  perfect.  Once  she 
mistrusted  her  own  skill  and  went  to  see  a  sur 
geon.  She  showed  him  the  picture  of  Arisuga 

269 


270  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

and  asked  whether  he  could  reproduce  his 
wound  upon  herself.  But  immediately  the 
doctor  began  to  be  wary.  For  he  was  a  doc 
tor  like  all  other  doctors,  and  when  confronted 
with  a  thing  unusual  —  one  which  no  other  doc 
tor  had  put  into  the  books  —  he  was  not  wise. 

"Ugly  women,"  he  said,  "have  often  asked 
me  to  make  them  pretty.  But  this  is  the  first 
time,  in  a  somewhat  extended  practice,  that 
I  have  had  a  pretty  one  ask  me  to  make  her 
ugly.  Tell  me  the  reason  for  it,  and  perhaps  I 
can  convince  you  that  such  beauty  as  the 
creator  graciously  gives  us  ought  to  be  pre 
served,  not  destroyed,  for  it  is  more  rare  than 
you  think. " 

But  while  he  opened  his  case  for  some  in 
strument  of  exploration,  Hoshiko  fled  —  so 
quietly  and  swiftly  that  when  he  turned  he 
wondered  if  she  had  ever  been  there.  Yes, 
there  was  in  the  air  the  flower  perfume  with 
which  she  had  anointed  her  pretty  body  for 
his  offices. 

Of  course  she  could  run  no  such  risk  again. 
She  must  do  it  herself.  So  for  long  she  thought 
upon  wounds  and  woundings.  How  they  were 
made ;  how  they  were  healed ;  how  that  one  of 


REINCARNATION   OF   SHIJIRO   ARISUGA     271 

Arisuga's  had  been  made ;  how  it  was  healed : 
it  was  a  sabre,  and  it  had  cut  — so.  Then  it 
had  been  stitched  so  —  very  carelessly  she  had 
thought  every  time  she  saw  it. 

She  was  entirely  capable  of  striking  herself 
with  a  sabre;  but  through  long  reasoning 
she  understood  that  she  would  not  be  likely  to 
reproduce  the  precise  form  of  Arisuga's  wound. 
Though  this  was  necessary,  there  was  only  one 
chance  in  many  thousands  of  accomplishing  it. 

She  finally  knew  that  she  must  do  it  carefully, 
slowly  —  very  slowly.  There  would  be  none  of 
the  ecstasy  of  the  battle.  Arisuga  had  often 
told  her  that  he  had  never  felt  the  wound  until 
it  was  healed.  That,  in  fact,  he  would  not  have 
known  that  he  was  struck  but  for  the  blood 
hi  his  eyes.  But  she  must  do  it  as  one  argues 
a  thing.  Do  you  understand  !  the  difference  ? 
Can  you  see  how  a  wound  received  in  hot  car 
nage  and  one  slowly  carved  in  one's  own  flesh 
may  differ  ?  Be  sure  that  Hoshiko  understood 
all  this. 

But  she  could  not  in  America.  It  seemed 
an  alien  thing  to  do  in  a  country  which  would 
only  have  misunderstood  and  perhaps  have 
laughed.  It  needed  her  native  soil  and  atmos- 


272  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

phere,  and  ancestors  and  gods,  to  make  the 
undertaking  simple.  Besides,  while  she  was 
studying  the  making  of  the  wound,  steam  and 
wind  were  taking  her  home.  It  was  there, 
in  the  little  deserted  house,  still  deserted, 
where  they  had  lived  so  happily  those  few 
days,  that  everything  seemed  fortunate. 

And  so  there,  after  much  preparation,  she 
did  it  —  all  in  one  tortured  day.  Early  in  the 
morning  she  sat  down  before  her  little  round 
mirror.  She  knew  what  she  was  to  suffer.  But 
she  neither  shrank  from  it  nor  sought  to  miti 
gate  its  agony.  First  she  prayed  the  gods  — 
very  long.  Then  she  set  his  picture  before 
her.  Then  she  washed  —  very  clean.  Then 
she  made  very  sharp  the  little  toilet  sword. 
Then  she  bound  her  body  with  many  towels 
and  made  the  first  incision  bravely.  But 
she  had  not  well  calculated  the  agony  of 
such  slow  self -wounding.  Her  senses  slowly 
left  her  as  if  to  protest  against  what  she  did. 

It  was  long  before  her  hands  would  return  to 
their  office  of  self -mutilation.  Yet  no  matter 
how  weak  the  flesh  was,  the  spirit  always  drove 
the  hands  back  to  their  office  until  it  was  done 
—  and  well  done  —  to  the  stitches  —  to  the 


REINCARNATION   OF  SHIJIRO  ARISUGA    273 

anointing  —  to  the  binding  —  the  destruction 
of  the  quivering  parts  of  herself. 

Can  you  fancy  her  there  on  the  floor  before 
the  little  mirror  which  had  once  told  back  to 
her  all  her  loveliness,  with  that  little  sword 
deliberately  carving  out  of  her  own  beautiful 
flesh  with  her  own  hand  Arisuga's  horrid 
badge  of  honor?  She  knew  it  so  well  that 
she  limned  it  in  her  forehead  as  faithfully 
as  had  the  Chinese  sabre  in  his.  You  could 
not  —  no  one  could  —  have  told  the  difference. 
There  was  a  curious  curve  upward  at  the  end, 
and  a  thickened  cicatrice,  as  if  it  had  been 
carelessly  gathered  up  by  the  surgeon's  needle. 
These  she  made  with  her  own  needle. 

And  then  for  many  days  she  lay  clutching 
her  mattress,  not  moving  for  fear  the  contour 
of  the  wound  might  be  marred. 

That  was  a  splendid  morning  to  her  —  it 
would  have  been  one  of  horror  to  you  —  when 
she  could  crawl  from  the  futons  and  know  by 
the  glass  that  his  wound  was  set  forever  in 
its  place  on  her  forehead.  She  did  not  observe 
that  her  face  was  vague  and  shadowy ;  her  eyes 
saw  nothing  but  that.  Why  should  they  see 
anything  more? 


274  THE   WAY  OF   THE  GODS 

Yet,  and  I  must  tell  you  this,  she  did  see 
something  else,  presently,  as  she  looked,  day 
after  day. 

The  face  she  saw  only  vaguely,  at  first,  in  her 
weakness,  as  she  watched  the  growing  into 
beauty  of  the  wound,  was  gradually  not 
hers.  And  then  it  seemed  that  behind  her 
own  a  shadow  face  hovered.  Presently  she 
knew  it  for  the  face  of  Shijiro  Arisuga. 
Then  slowly  her  own  face  passed  away  and  his 
was  there.  The  difference  was  quite  clear  — 
it  was  his.  And  in  that  way  she  knew  that 
the  pitying  gods  had  fully  granted  and  com 
pleted  her  a  reincarnation  without  death,  and 
that  she  was  no  longer  Hoshiko,  but  Arisuga. 

Shall  you  be  glad  to  know  further  that  when 
she  answered  to  the  name  of  Shijiro  Arisuga  that 
morning  at  Sendai,  (on  that  same  Myagi  Field, 
where  Shijiro  had  been  decorated !)  all  that 
had  been  the  Lady  Hoshi  was  no  more  ?  That 
she  was  like  the  rest  of  them  —  a  ruffian  ?  That 
she  had  an  oath  or  two,  that  her  voice  was 
harsh,  her  words  which  once  flowed  like  pleas 
ant  water  few  and  terrible  ? 

But  she  had  to  sing  his  songs,  to  be  gay  as 
he  had  been,  and  to  be  beloved  as  he  had  been. 


REINCARNATION  OF  SHIJIRO  ARISUGA    275 

And  all  these  things  she  accomplished,  even 
to  his  songs,  which  fled  through  smiling  lips  — 
laughing,  shouting  lips  —  over  the  graves 
within.  For  the  woman  always  remained  in 
some  subconscious  fashion,  and  it  was  upon  the 
rebellious  singing  of  his  songs  more  than  any 
thing  else  that  this  latent  Lady  Hoshi  awoke. 

Yet  I  am  certain  that  you  will  like  to  be 
told,  since  it  must  have  been,  that  this  made 
no  difference;  she  made  no  mistakes.  That 
she  did  no  discredit  to  Shijiro  Arisuga.  That, 
in  fact,  in  a  fashion  difficult  to  fathom,  save 
by  the  doctrine  of  reincarnation,  so  had  she 
become  him  in  all  matters  of  action  that  she 
never  even  thought  of  herself  as  Hoshiko. 
She  was  Shijiro  Arisuga  —  when  there  was 
to  be  fighting  —  and  always  had  been.  And 
this  was  no  easy  thing  for  such  a  flower  as 
Hoshiko.  For  Arisuga  had  been  a  man.  So 
that,  as  one  thinks  on  it,  one  is  not  irrepa 
rably  offended  at  the  possibility  of  Hoshiko, 
by  a  living  reincarnation,  having  become 
another  being.  How  do  we  know?  And, 
how  else  could  she  have  accomplished  it? 

But  putting  aside  all  possible  differences 
concerning  that,  hi  this  rejoice:  the  sun-flag 
was  never  borne  with  greater  daring! 


ZANZI,  LOVER  OF  BATTLES 


XXX 

ZANZI,    LOVER   OF   BATTLES 

AT  Tokyo  there  was  a  contest  between  the 
Hakodate  regiment  and  the  Guards  for  the 
color-bearer  who  had  been  decorated  by  the 
emperor.  Hoshiko  wished  to  go  on  —  mad  as 
Arisuga  once  was  for  the  fight. 

(Perhaps  we  had  better  call  her  Arisuga  from 
this  on?  Yet,  you  may  then  forget  that  she 
was  Hoshiko;  you  may  forget  that  each  mo 
ment  was  a  new  expiation  for  happiness.  No, 
we  shall  continue  to  call  her  Hoshiko  —  that 
you  may  remember.) 

Said  General  Zanzi :  — 

"Stay  where  you  are,  you  little  fool.  The 
Guards  will  move  first.  We  are  going  to  the 
greatest  victory  a  nation  ever  won.  Do  you 
want  to  be  left  behind  —  come  when  it  is 
won,  and  march  in  parade  order  over  the  field  ? 
You  used  to  fight,  you  infernal  little  eta. 
What  is  the  matter  with  you  now  ?  Look  at  me. " 

279 


280  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

She  did  this  fearlessly,  for  the  gods  were  at 
her  elbow. 

"You  —  you  -      What  is  the  matter?" 

" Nothing,"  said  Hoshiko. 

"You  don't  seem  quite  the  Arisuga  I  ban 
ished  to  America.  But  then  the  Americans 
have  changed  you,  I  suppose.  They  are  a 
melancholy  lot  and  have  made  you  so,  eh? 
Of  course,  if  you  are  less  brave  than  you  were, 
the  Guards  don't  want  you.  Go  to  the  Ha 
kodate  men." 

"I  am  not  less  brave,"  smiled  Hoshiko,  with 
a  salute.  "  And  I  prefer  the  Guards." 

"Well,  I  ought  to  have  known  that.  Come ! 
Drink  with  me. " 

He  produced  a  bottle  of  the  foreign  sort,  and 
poured  her  a  libation  of  terrible  brandy.  She 
drank  what  she  could  of  it  and  managed  to  spill 
the  rest  as  he  drank. 

"  Sing ! " 

But  he  gave  her  no  opportunity. 

"Oh,  these  burly  idiots!"  he  cried,  hot  and 
merry  with  the  brandy.  "It  is  only  ten  years 
and  they  have  already  forgot !  They  do  not 
know  that  since  Shimenoseki  we  have  prepared 
for  this.  They  do  not  know  that  they  have  not 


ZANZI,   LOVEE   OF  BATTLES  281 

a  secret  from  us.  They  do  not  know  that  the 
whole  course  of  the  war  is  already  planned 
here  —  here  —  by  Japan.  And  that  as  it  is 
planned  so  it  will  be  fought.  Their  navy 
first  —  every  ship  of  it.  Port  Arthur  next. 
Mukden !  Saghalien !  Vladivostock !  We 
will  meet  them  at  the  Yalu  —  do  you  hear  ? 
At  the  Yalu,  near  Wiju,  where  we  met  the 
Chinese  in  1894,  only  to  be  robbed  of  victory 
by  these  Russian  louts !  We  are  decoying 
them  to  the  tryst  now  as  we  did  the  Chinese. 
They  will  not  steal  our  winning  this  time. 
They  will  pay !  We  shall  meet  them  at  the 
Yalu.  And  we  shall  meet  but  once  there. 
There  will  not  be  a  battlefield  we  will  not  our 
selves  choose.  Nor  a  time  to  battle  which  we 
shall  not  fix.  Oh,  they  call  us  little  men  —  us ! 
But,  by  the  immortal  gods,  they  will  know, 
presently,  that  souls  are  measured  not  by  size. 
They  call  us  few;  but  they  fail  to  reckon  the 
myriad  spirits  of  our  ancestors,  all  the  august- 
nesses  who  will  fight  with  us,  direct  our  bullets, 
lead  our  assaults  with  a  knowledge  which  they, 
born  of  beasts,  cannot  have.  Eta,  we  shall 
meet  them  at  the  Yalu.  Wait  here  till  you  are 
transferred.  Then  on  with  us.  Banzai !" 


282  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

They  laughed  together,  and  Zanzi  went  out, 
singing  of  carnage  as  if  he  were  beneath 
the  window  of  his  lady,  with  a  samisen. 


THE   TOMB   OF   LORD   ESAS 


XXXI 

THE  TOMB  OF  LORD   ESAS 

IT  was  but  two  days.  Yet  in  that  time  Ho 
shiko  hastened  to  all  the  dear  places  where  he 
had  gone  in  the  days  he  had  told  her  of  —  when 
he  held  the  hand  of  Yon6  instead  of  hers.  It 
was  on  the  second  day,  in  the  evening,  at  Shiba, 
that  some  one  spoke  his  name  behind  her. 
The  voice  was  a  woman's  —  that  she  at  once 
knew.  And  also  at  once,  in  that  strange  in 
telligence  which  we  have  of  the  spirit  and  not 
of  any  teaching,  she  knew  that  this  was  Yon6  — 
and  that  she  had  not  forgotten  all  and  married 
(as  they  had  laughingly  fancied),  but  was  still 
waiting,  as  she  had  said.  And  suddenly  for 
a  moment,  only  a  moment,  she  was  no  longer 
Arisuga  the  color-bearer,  but  again  a  woman  of 
those  who  know  the  terror  and  weariness  of 
hopeless  waiting  —  such  as  only  women,  and 
never  men,  know.  And  she  remembered.  It 
was  ten  years.  Yet  this  faithful  one  had  waited 

285 


286  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

while  she  had  had  her  happiness.  And  what 
should  she  do  ?  There  was  little  question  of  that. 
Here  she  was  confronted  with  the  evidence  of 
how  she  had  destroyed  the  gods'  balance  by 
taking  her  overdue  of  joy,  leaving  to  Yone"  an 
overdue  of  sorrow,  and  was  given  the  oppor 
tunity  to  restore,  in  some  part,  the  account. 
But  how  ?  It  was  quite  plain  upon  the  briefest 
reflection.  She  must  be  to  her,  also,  Arisuga. 
She  must  touch  her  as  he  had  done,  take  her 
hands  as  he  once  did,  and  then  —  perhaps  —  per 
haps  —  Yone  would  be  comforted  and  she 
might  go. 

For  that  moment  she  was  a  woman  only  — 
only  Hoshiko  —  and  the  tears  ran  down  her 
face.  Now  she  might  not  turn.  What? 
Tears  on  the  face  of  a  rough  soldier ! 

"Shijiro,"  Yone  was  saying  to  Hoshiko's 
back,  "I  have  waited  —  waited  all  the  years. 
Yet  had  they  been  ten  times  ten  they  are  all 
blotted  out  by  this  moment.  Oh,  the  gods 
have  been  true,  as  they  always  are !  I  prayed 
them,  and  they  let  me  know  that  they  would 
bring  you  to  me  if  I  would  but  wait  patiently. 
Turn  and  look  at  me.  See  whether  I  am  grown 
too  old  for  you  to  touch  once  more.  See 


THE  TOMB   OF  LORD   ESAS  287 

whether  my  hands  are  yet  fit  for  yours.  I  have 
prayed  Benten  to  keep  me  young  and  make  me 
beautiful  against  this  moment  of  your  coming. 
And  every  day  —  every  day,  Ani-San  —  I  have 
come  here,  whether  it  rained  or  the  sun  shone 
—  every  day  —  here  or  at  Mukojima  —  or  the 
other  dear  places  of  our  youth.  And  yet  my 
sandals  are  not  worn,  my  kimono  is  new  —  see, 
because  ever  I  renewed  them,  remembering 
that  you  liked  me  always  so.  Will  you  not 
look,  beloved?  Yone*  will  not  trouble  you  if 
you  do  not  wish.  She  will  let  you  go  and  will 
wait  still." 

Hoshiko  slowly  turned.  Yone  stepped  back 
from  her.  So  they  stood  a  moment  at  gaze. 
Hoshiko  saw  a  creature  as  small  and  fragile 
as  she  herself  had  once  been,  and  more  beau 
tiful  she  thought  —  much  more  beautiful. 

Yone"  saw  a  soldier  whose  face  she  knew, 
but  whose  soul,  at  first,  was  strange. 

"I  am  Shijiro  Arisuga,"  said  Hoshiko. 

"Yes,"  breathed  Yone",  "wait.  There  is 
something  strange.  Something  I  did  not  ex 
pect.  Is  it  the  years?  Yes.  But  your  voice 
is  more  gentle  though  less  gay." 

"I  can  make  it  harsh,"  smiled  Hoshiko. 


288  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"Nay!"  cried  Yon6,  still  at  gaze.  "Did 
you  know  me?  Did  you  know  my  voice?" 

"Yes,"  said  Hoshiko. 

"And  you  have  a  scar  —  you  have  fought." 

"In  many  battles." 

"Yet  the  gods  did  not  send  you  the  great 
red  death,  but  sent  you  to  me,  as  I  prayed." 

"Yes." 

"It  is  all  the  gods'  will." 

Twilight  had  fallen  and  Yone*  came  confi 
dently  closer. 

"Will  you  walk  with  me  as  we  used?  It 
is  the  gods'  will ! " 

"Yes." 

"Will  you  take  my  hand?" 

"Yes." 

As  Hoshiko  felt  the  small  hand  curl  in  hers 
the  tears  fell  again  from  her  eyes.  But  they 
could  not  be  seen  now  and  she  let  them  fall. 
Nor  need  she  talk  and  thus  betray  herself. 
Yone"  had  lost  all  fear  in  the  giving  of  her  hand 
and  now  chattered  on. 

"Come  —  to  the  tomb  of  Lord  Esas,  where 
we  made  the  seat  of  a  stone  and  moss.  It  is 
there  yet.  I  have  kept  it  as  it  was.  Often 
I  have  sat  there.  Only  once  before  were  we 


THE   TOMB   OF   LORD   ESAS  289 

here  at  night  —  hiding,  as  perhaps  we  shall 
to-night,  when  the  watchman  comes  with  his 
lantern  and  staff.  Shall  we  go  to  the  tomb  of 
Lord  Esas,  beloved?" 

''Yes,"  said  Hoshiko. 

"You  speak  as  if  you  wept  —  and,  when  you 
turned,  your  face  looked  as  if  you  had  wept. 
Oh,  it  looked  for  a  moment  like  a  woman's 
—  and  not  a  soldier's !  Soldiers  do  not  weep." 

"  Soldiers  weep.    I  do." 

"Ani-San!    Forme?" 

'Tor  you." 

"The  waiting?" 

"The  waiting." 

"But,  then,  weep  no  more,  Ani-San.  I  am 
here  —  at  your  side.  All  the  waiting  is  forgot. 
Blotted  out  by  this  one  great  moment.  And  per 
haps  —  Here  is  the  seat.  Is  it  not  all  as  it  was  ? 
Though  it  is  ten  years  —  ten  years  of  weary 
waiting.  Here  you  sat,  always,  here  I  sat. 
And  we  are  grown  too  old  now  to  change." 

She  laughed  timorously,  and  when  Hoshiko 
had  seated  herself  where  Arisuga  had  once  sat, 
she  took  her  place  as  if  there  were  no  years  be 
tween  this  and  that.  Then  she  went  on :  — 

" — perhaps,  to-night,  you  will  be  as  sweet 


290  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

as  you  were  on  that  other  night  —  when  — 
Do  you  remember?" 

"I  remember,"  said  Hoshiko. 

"But  we  have  no  samisen.  Yet  I  can  sing  — 
if  you  ask  me  — " 

"Sing." 

" — the  song  of  'The  Moon-and-the-Stork,' 
which  we  ourselves  made  —  here  —  where  the 
moon  looked  down  upon  us.  See,  it  knows. 
It  knows  you  are  come.  There  it  passes  above 
the  great  criptomeria  now.  And  —  and  —  oh, 
it  is  an  omen  of  all  good !  A  stork  flies  over 
its  face.  Or  it  is  a  branch  of  the  tree? 
No  matter,  the  omen  is  the  same,  Ani-San;  all 
is  as  it  was,  is  it  not?" 

"All  is  as  it  was,  beloved,"  whispered  Ho 
shiko. 

Yone*  came  diffidently  closer  at  the  dear  word. 

"When  I  sang  that  night  I  was  in  your 
arms  - 

The  arms  of  Hoshiko  closed  about  the  girl 
at  her  side  almost  with  violence. 

"That  is  it, "  she  cried  happily,  nesting  there. 
"Yes,  that  is  quite  it.  Don't  you  remember 
how  your  violence  frightened  me  until  you 
explained  that  it  was  love?  And  we  laughed. 


THE   TOMB   OF   LORD   ESAS  291 

Now  we  are  sad.  We  used  to  laugh  then. 
And  you  could  not  play  the  samisen  because 
I  was  in  your  arms.  And  I  would  not  get  out 
of  them.  So  that  I  sang  without  the  samisen 
that  night.  Therefore,  all  will  be  quite  the 
same  if  I  sing  to-night  without  it.  You  have 
not  forgotten  the  Moon-and-the-Stork  song?" 

"No"  —  for  Arisuga  had  often  sung  it  to 
her. 

Then  she  sang :  — 

"O  moon  get  out  of  my  way,"  said  the  stork, 

"O  stork  get  out  of  my  light,"  said  the  moon. 

"  I  will  not,"  said  the  stork, 

"I  will  not,"  said  the  moon: 

So  that  is  why  the  stork  is  in  the  light  of  the  moon, 

And  that  is  why  the  moon  is  in  the  way  of  the  stork. 

It  was  a  little  voice,  with  no  great  melody, 
but  well  fitted  for  so  frail  a  theme.  Hoshiko 
joined  her,  stumbling  upon  a  word,  at  which 
Yone  chided  her  for  forgetting,  laughed  happily 
and  crept  yet  closer.  Then  she  said,  after  a 
silence :  — 

"Now!" 

"What?"  asked  Hoshiko;  for  that  she  did 
not  know. 

' '  Oh,  have  you   forgotten  —  have  you  for- 


292  THE  WAY   OF  THE  GODS 

gotten  ?  That  also  ?  Alas  —  alas !  After  the 
song  you  spoke  of  — " 

Her  pretty  head  was  burrowed  deeply  into 
the  space  beneath  Hoshiko's  chin. 

"What?"  Hoshiko  had  to  ask  again. 

"Of  marriage,"  whispered  the  girl,  in  terror. 
And  the  terror  of  Hoshiko  was  no  less  than 
that  of  Yone'. 

"You  said,  you  swore  by  this  sacred  tomb 
of  a  hero,  that  if  the  gods  did  not  send  you  the 
red  death  we  should  be  married  one  to  the 
other—" 

"But,  beloved,"  breathed  Hoshiko,  in  further 
terror,  "I  am  still  a  soldier,  still  bound  to  the 
great  red  death.  I  am  here  but  this  day.  To 
morrow,  this  night  yet,  I  go  to  battle.  Would 
you  wish  me  to  marry  you  and  at  once  go  to 
the  field?" 

"Yes,"  whispered  the  girl. 

"And,  perchance,  fall  and  never  return?" 

"Yes." 

"So  that  you  will  be  a  widow  with  blackened 
teeth?" 

"Yes." 

Hoshiko  made  no  other  protest.  What  had 
been  first  considered  with  a  certain  horror, 


THE   TOMB   OF   LORD   ESAS  293 

seemed  beautiful  and  merciful  to  this  love-lorn 
maiden  now.  She  need  never  know.  She 
would  live  and  die  thinking  herself  married  to 
Arisuga.  At  her  death  she  would  cut  her  hair 
and  hang  it  at  a  shrine,  and  always  keep  the 
lamps  alight,  and  always  pray  for  the  soul  of 
Shijiro  Arisuga.  It  was  the  way  of  the  gods; 
and,  as  always,  the  way  of  the  gods  was  best, 
was  beautiful ! 


WHEN  THE  WATCH  PASSED 


XXXII 

WHEN  THE  WATCH  PASSED 

"Sn!  sh!"  whispered  Yone,  suddenly,  and 
crushed  her  small  hand  upon  Hoshiko's  mouth. 

It  was  the  watchman  with  staff  and  lantern, 
crying  weirdly  in  the  night.  He  passed  near. 
He  paused  nearer.  Yone  drew  a  bit  of  shrub 
bery  before  them. 

"I  heard  a  song,  by  all  the  gods  I  heard  a 
foolish  song  in  this  sacred  place  of  tombs. 
Come  forth,"  he  cried  aloud,  "he  who  sings 
foolishly  in  a  sacred  place,  come  forth  and  be 
punished  of  the  gods  so  that  you  may  repent ! 
Otherwise  your  punishment  will  wait  until  you 
are  unready  for  it." 

Now  he  moved  on.  His  voice  came  mutter 
ing  back : — 

"Come  forth,  come  forth!  I  heard  a  song, 
an  unholy  song  in  the  sacred  place  of  tombs." 

Yone"  let  the  bush  return  and  laughed  happily 
in  the  arms  of  Hoshiko. 

297 


298  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

"Oh,  is  it  not  all  as  it  was,  beloved?  It  is 
the  same  watchman  —  older.  And  they  are 
the  same,  almost  the  same,  words  —  more 
eery.  And  we  are  close,  close  —  as  we  were 
then.  Oh,  it  is  divine  to  be  close  with  you ! 
So  —  so,  my  beloved,  another  omen !  Every 
thing  else  is  as  it  was.  Shall  not  we  be?" 

Hoshiko  was  silent. 

"Be  not  afraid,  beloved,"  Yone*  said.  "I 
will  be  true  always  until  we  meet  in  the  heavens. 
Always  I  will  be  your  widow  with  blackened 
teeth  if  you  fall  —  my  hair  blowing  at  a  shrine. 
Think!  But  for  me  there  will  be  no  one  to 
keep  the  lamps  alight  before  you  if  you  die  — 
but  for  me.  And  I  —  they  shall  never  fail. 
For,  if  you  fall,  I  will  wait  as  I  have  done 
—  keeping  the  lamps,  hoping  that  you  will  hold 
out  your  hand  in  the  black  Meido  when  I 
pass  to  death,  and  that  then  we  shall,  some 
how,  never  part.  Oh,  beloved,  there  have  been 
suitors  and  suitors  and  always  suitors !  The 
nakado  has  worn  bare  the  mat  at  the  door. 
But  was  I  not  yours?  How  could  I  listen 
to  any  one  else?  And  the  wedding  garments 
are  all  ready.  And  there  is  no  one  to  stay 
us  but  the  old  deaf  Hana,  who  will  not  even 


WHEN   THE  WATCH   PASSED  299 

hear.  If  you  must  go  quickly,  to-night,  there 
is  the  foreign  minister  —  there  is  the  new  regis 
try  office — " 

"And  for  this,"  said  Hoshiko,  "the  few  words 
of  a  foreign  priest,  nine  cups  of  sake",  a  line  in 
the  registry  office,  you  will  give  up  your  dear 
life  to  me?" 

"I  will  give  up  all  my  souls  —  all  my  hope 
of  a  rest  at  last  in  Buddha's  bosom  if  I  must. 
Oh,  Shijiro  Arisuga,  for  this  I  have  waited 
until  it  seemed  that  I  could  wait  no  more. 
Give  it  to  me  now  —  this  night  —  before  you 
go!" 

"0  love,"  whispered  Hoshiko,  "what  is 
like  you  in  all  the  earths,  in  all  the  heavens ! 
There  is  no  other  miracle  but  you  alone. 
Come !  My  hour  is  almost  here.  But  were 
it  already  past,  and  though  a  soldier  but  obeys 
the  hours,  yet  you  should  be  a  wife  before  I  go." 

And  even  to  that  moment  Hoshiko  had  not 
known  how  Yone*  yearned  for  that  one  word 
to  be  added  to  her.  Suddenly  she  grovelled 
on  the  earth  and  caught  the  hands  and  knees 
of  her  who  had  been  wife  to  him  they  both 
loved. 

"All  the  gods  bless  you  —  all  the  gods  — 


300  THE  WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

for  giving  me  that  one  name.  For  in  all  the 
earths  and  heavens  together  there  is  none  so 
sweet  as  —  wife  to  Shijiro  Arisuga." 

And  there,  that  night,  Hoshiko  married 
little  Yone". 

"Now  go  and  die,"  she  wept  at  farewell, 
"and  here  I  will  wait  —  wait,  until  I,  also,  die 
—  wait  for  that  touch  of  your  spirit  on  my  arm, 
wait  for  your  hand  in  the  dark  Meido.  But  if 
you  do  not  die?  if  the  gods  are  not  ready 
yet  for  you — you  will  come?" 

"I  will  come  again,"  said  Hoshiko,  weeping, 
too,  which  was  strange  for  a  soldier. 

And  there  they  parted,  only  a  moment  after 
they  were  married,  and  Hoshiko  was  ordered 
to  join  the  Guards  and  hurry  to  the  Yalu,  where 
their  prey  was  fattening. 


TEIKOKU  BANZAI 


xxxm 

TEIKOKU  BANZAI 

THEN,  at  last,  after  three  months  of  march 
ing  and  wading  and  six  days  of  fighting,  they 
faced  the  Russian  intrenchments  at  that  place 
beyond  Wiju,  which  some  call,  to  this  day, 
Hamatan,  but  which  is  Yujuho.  And  the 
Imperial  Guards  were  there.  Shijiro  Arisuga, 
if  he  were  there,  also,  must  have  observed  with 
joy  that  the  Guards  had  the  right  of  the  line 
and  would  reach  the  Russian  intrenchments 
first  —  perhaps  off  toward  Kiuliencheng,  where 
the  battery  of  six  pieces  was  still  stubbornly 
firing.  He  would  know  that  the  Guards  must 
give  many  happy  ones  their  opportunity  for 
the  great  red  death.  Perhaps  he  could,  then, 
see  far  enough  into  the  future  to  know  that  his 
own  regiment  would  have  the  advance  and  be 
cut  to  pieces.  It  would  hurl  itself  straight 
upon  those  stubborn  guns.  They  would  tear 
bloody  lanes  in  its  ranks.  And  Hoshiko  would 
be  in  the  forefront  of  it. 

303 


304  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

Kuroki's  artillery  ceased,  Zassuliche's  ceased, 
and  that  stillness  which  the  soldier  knows  for 
the  prelude  to  the  assault  fell.  The  two  shots 
from  the  right  was  the  advance.  Zanzi  raised 
his  hand,  and  into  the  smoke  raced  Hoshiko 
with  the  colors.  And  she  did  not  forget  Ari- 
suga's  glory  —  nor  his  father's  —  nor  that 
dream  of  his  when  the  small  white  death  was 
closing  down  upon  him.  She  understood  that 
he  was  there.  And  not  only  he. 

His  ancestors  were  looking  on  —  the  stately 
samurai.  And  hers  —  the  humble  eta.  His 
father  whom  she  here  redeemed.  The  emperor 
with  his  thousand  eyes.  The  myriads  of  the 
gods.  The  army.  The  world.  The  heavens  ! 

Yet  she  forgot  nothing  which  Arisuga  had 
taught  her.  She  went  forward  with  two  others. 
To  her  right,  to  her  left,  were  other  threes 
zigzagging  onward.  But  always  she  was  in 
their  front — steadily,  carefully,  almost  to  where 
the  battery  of  six  pieces  had  fixed  a  point  to 
reach  her,  as  she  passed.  There  her  three 
dropped  and  dug.  And  there  they  rested  until 
the  battery  lost  them.  Up  then  and  out  again 
till  the  gunners  once  more  noted  her  like  a  mov 
ing  lump  of  earth  and  corrected  their  elevation 


TEIKOKU  BANZAI  305 

in  her  favor.  And  so  twice  more.  At  the 
last  she  dared  to  look  back.  Behind  her 
stretched  two  lines  of  trenches.  In  the  near 
est  a  little  fringe  of  rifle  muzzles  already 
showed.  She  had  brought  these  there.  Further 
back  was  a  thin  line  of  blue  racing  for  the 
first  trenches.  She  had  set  these  going.  Still 
further  back  the  army  in  vast  masses  of  blue 
was  moving  into  position  from  behind  the 
willows  on  the  bank  of  the  river. 

And  these  waited  also  upon  the  little  sun- 
flag  on  which  Hoshiko  lay.  She  felt  for  the 
first  time  the  soldier's  ecstasy,  and  she  under 
stood  better  and  forgave  more  the  latter  years 
of  Arisuga. 

She  and  her  two  had  rested,  and  had  made 
of  their  chain  of  holes  a  shallow  trench.  They 
meant  to  dig  this  deeper  for  those  who  were 
to  come  after  them.  But  the  two  vast  armies 
they  had  set  in  motion  began  to  move  with 
accelerated  speed  toward  each  other,  and 
they  stopped  the  trench  where  it  was. 

There  would  be  no  more  digging.  Any  one 
might  see  that.  The  Russian  battery  had 
again  found  them.  One  of  the  guns  was  ex 
ploding  shrapnel  over  their  heads.  The  rest 


306  THE  WAY  OF  THE  GODS 

were  trying  for  the  thin  blue  line  further  back. 
The  willows  which  yet  hid  the  army  were  too  far 
away.  The  moment  was  ripe.  Hoshiko  threw 
aside  the  spade  and  everything  else  which  might 
impede  action,  and  went  toward  the  battery. 

From  behind  her  rose  the  hoarse  mongolian 
yell  she  had  learned  to  love.  There  was  no  need 
now  for  concealment.  Their  own  guns  had 
located  the  battery  in  her  front.  A  wicked 
shell  had  just  burst  over  it.  She  could  hear 
the  song  of  the  fragments.  And  but  three 
men  stood  by  the  gun  afterward.  The  little 
figure  with  the  sun-flag  raced  down  upon  them, 
firing.  It  was  quite  alone.  The  three  gave  her 
a  weak,  magnanimous  cheer  and  retired,  leaving 
their  gun. 

Her  own  men  answered  from  the  rear.  And 
even  amid  the  "Banzais"  she  could  hear  the 
wild  song  of  Arisuga.  One  line  clanged  in  her 
mad  brain :  — 

"  Death-wound  spurting — " 

Further  up  the  hill  a  single  rapid-fire  gun 
which  knew  her  only  as  an  enemy  came  into 
action.  It  found  her  at  once  and  riddled  her 
with  bullets,  as,  flag  in  hand,  she  leaped  into 
the  first  of  the  Russian  trenches. 


TEIKOKU   BANZAI  307 

That  line  was  in  her  last  articulate  conscious 
ness:  — 

"  Death- wound  spurting  —  " 

Perhaps  it  only  remained  in  her  ears  —  Ari- 
suga's  song.  But  she  fancied  that  she  could 
feel  her  own  warm  blood  spurting  into  her 
own  face.  Was  it  as  glorious  as  he  had 
thought  it?  Or  was  it  only  terrible?  At 
that  moment,  first,  she  knew.  Perhaps  she 
became  in  that  last  instant  all  woman  once 
more.  Perhaps  she  saw  something  not  for  mor 
tal  eyes.  Perhaps  she  was  not  as  brave  with 
death  as  she  had  taught  herself  to  be  —  gentle 
Hoshiko !  Her  lips  moaned,  piteously,  when 
she  ought  to  have  been  dead,  "Arisuga!" 

So  that  one  of  the  two  who  had  gone  forward 
with  her  bent  hastily  and  said  to  the  other, 
with  a  pleasant  smile:  — 

"He  speaks  his  own  name!" 

"Nembutsu,"  answered  the  other.  "Take 
the  flag." 

The  first  one  tried,  but  it  held  fast  in  her 
hand. 

"There  is  no  need,"  he  said;  "the  battle  is 
won.  Let  him  keep  it!" 

But  they  covered  her  face.     For  the  peace, 


308  THE  WAY  OF   THE   GODS 

the  ecstasy,  of  a  glorious  death  was  not  on  it ! 
What  did  she  learn  in  that  death-instant  ? 

Others  caught  at  the  flag.  But  her  hand  held 
it  fast.  So  that  when  that  dense  line  of  blue 
which  she  had  started  from  the  willows  reached 
her,  at  first  it  parted  chivalrously  at  the  flag 
and  passed  on  either  side.  But  at  last  it 
could  not  part.  Some  one  trod  upon  the  little 
color-bearer.  Then  many.  The  thick-massed 
line  passed  over  her.  It  could  not  be  helped. 
Some  one  took  the  flag  from  her  hand  and 
planted  it  on  the  Russian  redoubt.  At  last  she 
seemed  but  part  of  the  earth  beneath  their 
feet,  and  they  who  trod  on  her  did  not  even 
look  down. 


AFTERWARD 


XXXIV 

AFTERWARD 

AFTERWARD  there  was  a  great  funeral.  The 
hillside  was  a  temple.  The  summer  blue  was 
its  roof.  The  jagged  mountains  were  its 
eaves.  Evergreen  trees  were  its  walls.  A 
torii  made  of  firs  was  its  gate.  Blossoming 
trees  held  the  gohei  strips  which  pledged 
purity  to  the  august  shades  which  waited  near. 
The  altar  was  of  rifles  and  a  soldier's  blanket. 
The  offerings  were  the  vapors  of  the  simple 
grains  and  flowers  of  the  country. 

Beyond  it  was  the  great  pyre  —  not  grim,  as 
death  is,  but  more  beautiful  than  that  on  which 
Dido  perished,  adorned,  perfumed,  with  aro 
matic  spring  firs  and  blossoming  trees.  In  the 
temple,  first,  the  shades  of  those  who  had 
fought  with  them  were  worshipped  and  exalted 
by  the  brocaded  priests.  Then  fealty  was  sworn 
to  those  who  had  just  died,  and  whose  shades 
yet  lingered  by  their  greatest  incarnation. 

311 


312  THE  WAY   OF  THE  GODS 

Last,  Nisshi  read  the  names  of  those  who  had 
died  with  glory.  And  first  among  them  was 
that  of  Shijiro  Arisuga.  Then  with  others 
they  put  the  blackened,  riven  little  body  they 
had  found,  upon  the  pyre,  and,  lighting  it, 
gave  Hoshiko's  ashes  to  the  earth,  her  spirit 
to  oblivion,  and  Arisuga's  name  to  honor. 

It  began  the  next  day.  Shijiro  Arisuga  was 
in  the  Tokyo  newspapers,  upon  the  dead  walls, 
and  in  the  hoarse  voices  of  the  people.  It  was 
a  story  like  the  terrible  courage  of  their  old 
warriors,  and  they  loved  it.  His  medal  was 
hung  in  a  temple.  And  to-day  there  is  a  rec 
ord  of  his  heroism,  on  the  brass  where  it  can 
never  fade  —  though  Shijiro  Arisuga  lies  dead, 
unknown,  in  America. 

And  that  was  the  fifth  time  that  Shijiro 
Arisuga  must  have  thought  the  happiest  mo 
ment  of  his  life  had  come. 

And  now  we  may  speculate  a  little,  before 
we  forget,  upon  this  last  of  the  five  occasions. 
For  there  may  be  those  who  think  that  Shi 
jiro  could  not  have  been  happy  in  seeing 
what  he  saw  that  day.  But  we  are  to  remem 
ber  that,  then,  he  had  knowledge  of  many 
things  which  he  had  not  on  earth.  And 


AFTERWARD  313 

among  these  was  a  more  intimate  knowing  of 
the  heart  of  Hoshiko.  And  in  that,  it  seems 
to  me,  he  ought  to  have  been  happiest  of  all. 
Yet  —  who  knows  ? 

Perhaps,  too,  the  merciful  gods  permitted 
themselves  to  be  deceived  into  thinking  that 
the  Shijiro  Arisuga  who  died  at  Hamatan  is, 
indeed,  the  one  who  died  at  Jokoji.  For 
the  life  name  is  the  same.  Or  perhaps  they 
are  only  complaisant,  and,  in  the  passing 
years,  will  permit  the  people  to  think  that  this 
is  so.  Who  knows  ? 

At  all  events,  Shijiro  Arisuga,  father  and  son, 
will  take  their  way  hand  in  hand  from  the  dark 
Meido  to  the  heavens. 

And  for  these  some  one  will  reverently 
write  a  splendid  death  name  upon  a  golden 
tablet  at  a  beautiful  shrine.  And  before  it 
will  burn  always  the  lights  and  the  incense. 
Perhaps  this  happiness  will  be  for  gentle  Yone*. 
Perhaps  the  spirit  of  her  who  died  at  Hamatan, 
in  its  boundless  compassion,  will  also  come  and 
touch  the  little  Yone*  on  the  arm  as  she  wan 
ders,  lonely,  by  the  tomb  of  Lord  Esas,  so  that 
she,  too,  may  have  her  heart's  desire,  and  only 
one,  she  who  bought  her  happiness  with  an 


314  THE   WAY   OF   THE   GODS 

eternity  of   obliteration,   have  nothing.    For, 
who  knows  ? 

And  one  wishes  it  were  possible  for  Shijiro 
to  have  defied  0-Emma  of  the  hells  and  to  have 
taken  Hoshiko  straight  from  the  great  red 
death,  past  all  the  lesser  heavens,  to  be  forever 
lost  in  the  bosom  of  the  Lord  Buddha  in  the 
lotus  fields  —  if  the  souls  of  mortals  ever  fly 
straight  from  earth  to  the  last  white  heaven. 
But  this  could  not  be.  There  was  that  eternal 
penance  for  over-joy  to  accomplish. 

For  Hoshiko  there  never  can  be  again,  in 
the  heavens  above  or  on  the  earth  beneath 
or  the  hells  below,  a  being.  All  her  exist 
ences  —  all  her  thousands  of  years  of  life  - 
whether  of  the  earths  or  the  heavens  or  the 
hells,  were  given  for  Shijiro  Arisuga,  whom  she 
loved  —  and  who  once,  for  a  little  while,  loved 
her.  Shijiro  Arisuga  lives,  and  the  father 
in  the  son  will  live  on  the  brass  forever. 

The  Dream-of-a-Star  is  forever  vanished, 
save  for  the  moment  I  write  here  —  save  for 
the  moment  you  read  here. 


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AT  THE  TIME  APPOINTED.    With  a  frontispiece  in  colors 
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The  fortunes  of  a  young  mining  engineer  who  through  an  accident 
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THE   SPIRIT   OF   THE   SERVICE.     By  Edith  Elmer 

Wood  With  illustrations  by  Rufus  Zogbaum. 
The  standards  and  life  of  "  the  new  navy;  are  breezily  set  forth 
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"  The  story  of  the  destruction  of  the  '  Maine,'  and  of  the  Battle  of 
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A  SPECTRE  OF  POWER.    By  Charles  Egbert  Craddock. 

Miss  Murfree  has  pictured  Tennessee  mountains  and  the  mountain 
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THE  STORM  CENTRE.    By  Charles  Egbert  Craddock. 

A  war  story ,  but  more  of  flirtation,  love  and  courtship  than  of 
fighting  or  history.  The  tale  is  thoroughly  readable  and  takes  its 
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THE  ADVENTURESS.  By  Coralie  Stanton.  With  color 
frontispiece  by  Harrison  Fisher,  and  attractive  inlay  cover 
in  colors 

As  a  penalty  for  her  crimes,  her  evil  nature,  her  flint-like  callous 
ness,  her  more  than  inhuman  cruelty,  her  contempt  for  the  laws  of 
God  and  man,  she  was  condemned  to  bury  her  magnificent  personal 
ty,  her  transcendent  beauty,  her  superhuman  charms,  in  gilded 
obscurity  at  a  King's  left  hand.  A  powerful  story  powerfully  told. 

THE    GOLDEN    GREYHOUND.     A  Novel  by  Dwight 

Tilton     With  illustrations  by  E.  Pollak. 

A  thoroughly  good  story  that  keeps  you  guessing  to  the  very  end. 
and  never  attempts  to  instruct  or  reform  you.  It  is  a  strictly  up-to- 
date  story  of  love  and  mystery  with  wireless  telegraphy  and  all  the 
modern  improvements.  The  events  nearly  all  take  place  on  a  big 
Atlantic  liner  and  the  romance  of  the  deep  is  skilfully  made  to  serve 
as  a  setting  for  the  romance,  old  as  mankind,  yet  always  new,  in 
volving  oui  hero. 

GROSSET  &  DCJNLAP,  -  NEW  YORK 


BRILLIANT  AND  SPIRITED  NOVELS 

AGNES  AND  EGERTON  CASTLE 

Handsomely  bound  in  cloth.     Price,  75  cents  per  volume,  postpaid. 

THE  PRIDE  OF  JENNICO.     Being  a  Memoir  of  Captain  Basil 
Jennico. 

"  What  separates  it  from  most  books  of  its  class  is  its  distinction 
of  manner,  its  unusual  grace  of  diction,  its  delicacy  of  touch,  and  the 
fervent  charm  of  its  love  passages.  It  is  a  very  attractive  piece  of 
romantic  fiction  relying  for  its  effect  upon  character  rather  than  inci 
dent,  and  upon  vivid  dramatic  presentation." — The  Dial.  "A  stirring, 
brilliant  and  dashing  story."—  The  Oatlook. 

THE  SECRET  ORCHARD.   Illustrated  by  Charles  D.  Williams. 

The  "  Secret  Orchard  "  is  set  in  the  midst  of  the  ultra  modern  society. 
The  scene  is  in  Paris,  but  most  of  the  characters  are  English  speak 
ing.  The  story  was  dramatized  in  London,  and  in  it  the  Kendalls 
scored  a  great  theatrical  success. 

"  Artfully  contrived  and  full  of  romantic  charm  *  *  *  it  pos 
sesses  ingenuity  of  incident,  a  figurative  designation  of  the  unhal 
lowed  scenes  in  which  unlicensed  love  accomplishes  and  wrecks  faith 
and  happiness." — Athenaeum, 

YOUNG  APRIL.    With  illustrations  by  A.  B.  WenzelL 

"  It  is  everything  that  a  good  romance  should  be,  and  it  carries 
about  it  an  air  of  distinction  both  rare  and  delightful." — Chicago 
Tribune.  "  With  regret  one  turns  to  the  last  page  of  this  delightful 
novel,  so  delicate  in  its  romance,  so  brilliant  in  its  episodes,  so  spark 
ling  in  its  art,  and  so  exquisite  in  its  diction. " —  Worcester  Spy. 

FLOWER  O'  THE  ORANGE.     With  frontispiece. 

We  have  learned  to  expect  from  these  fertile  authors  novels  grace 
ful  in  form,  brisk  in  movement,  and  romantic  in  conception.  This 
carries  the  reader  back  to  the  days  of  the  bewigged  and  berufHed 
gallants  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  tells  him  of  feats  of  arms  and 
adventures  in  love  as  thrilling  and  picturesque,  yet  delicate,  as  the 
utmost  seeker  of  romance  may  ask. 

MY  MERRY  ROCKHURST.    Illustrated  by  Arthur  E.  Becher. 

In  the  eight  stories  of  a  courtier  of  King  Charles  Second,  which  are 
here  gathered  together,  the  Castles  are  at  their  best,  reviving  all  the 
fragrant  charm  of  those  books,  like  The  Pride  of  Jennico,  in  which 
they  first  showed  an  instinct,  amounting  to  genius,  for  sunny  romances. 
The  book  is  absorbing  *  *  *  and  is  as  spontaneous  in  feeling  as  it  is 
artistic  in  execution." — New  York  Tribune. 

GROSSET  &  DUNLAP,  Publishers,         -         -         New  York 


Stewart  Edward  White's 

Great  Novels  of  Western  Life. 

THE  BLAZED  TRAIL.  With  illustrations  by  Thomas  Fogarty". 
"  It  is  a  wholesome  story,  full  of  sinew  and  pluck  and  endur 
ance,  with  gleams  of  humor  and  touches  of  philosophy  and  play 
of  courage.  It  tells  of  the  young  man  who  blazed  his  way  to  for 
tune  through  the  heart  of  the  Michigan  pines." — The  Critic. 

THE  CLAIM  JUMPERS.    A  Romance. 

A  tale  of  a  Western  mining  camp  and  the  making  of  a  man. 
DeLancy  Bennington,  of  an  aristocratic  Boston  family,  finds  him 
self  manager  of  a  mine  in  a  gulch  of  the  Black  Hills.  The  ten 
derfoot  has  a  hard  time  of  it,  but  meets  the  situation,  shows  the 
stuff  he  is  made  of  and  "  wins  out  "  in  more  ways  than  one. 

THE  MAGIC  FOREST.    With  illustrations. 

"  No  better  book  could  be  put  in  a  young  boy's  hands.  The 
sympathetic  way  in  which  the  children  of  the  wild  and  their  life 
is  treated  could  only  belong  to  one  who  is  in  love  with  the  forest 
and  the  open  air.  Based  on  fact  and  throbbing  with  life." 

THE  SILENT  PLACES.    With  illustrations. 

"  The  wonders  of  the  northern  forests  through  all  the  four  sea 
sons,  as  well  as  the  contrasts  between  youth  and  age,  feminine  de 
votion  and  masculine  power,  the  intelligence  of  the  Caucasian 
and  the  instinct  of  the  Indian,  all  are  finely  drawn,  while  the 
knowledge  of  nature  informs  every  page."—  T. ke  Dial. 

THE  WESTERNERS. 

"  Belongs  to  that  brilliant  galaxy  of  novels  which  open  with  such 
promise  for  pure  American  fiction.  This  story  of  the  Black  Hills 
will  claim  its  place  among  the  best  of  the  American  novels.  It 
portrays  the  life  of  the  new  West  as  no  other  book  has  yet  done. 

CONJUROR'S  HOUSE. 

Was  a  shipping  center  in  the  fur  trade  in  the  great  days  of  the 
Hudson's  Bay  Company.  How  Ned  Trent  entered  the  forbid 
den  territory,  took  la  longue  traverse,  and  subsequently  the  long 
journey  down  the  river  of  life  with  the  factor's  daughter  is 
ingeniously  told,  with  a  wealth  of  thrilling  and  romantic  situations. 

ARIZONA  NIGHTS.    With  illustrations  by  N.  C.  Wyeth. 

A  series  of  spirited  tales  emphasizing  some  phase  of  the  life  of 
the  ranch,  plains  and  desert,  and  all,  taken  together,  forming  a 
single  sharply-cut  picture  of  life  in  the  far  Southwest.  All  the 
tonic  of  the  West  is  in  this  masterpiece  of  Stewart  Edward  White. 

THE  MYSTERY.    With  illustrations  by  Will  Crawford. 

For  breathless  interest,  concentrated  excitement  and  extraordi 
narily  good  story-telling  on  all  counts,  no  more  completely  satis 
fying  romance  has  appeared  for  years.  It  is  mystery  and  adven- 
venture,  and  the  best  story  of  its  kind  since  Treasure  Island. 

GROSSET  &  DUNLAP,  Publishers,     I      -     NEW  YORK 


Handsomely  bound  in  cloth.     Price,  75  cents  per  volume,  postpaid. 

THE  KINDRED  OF  THE  WILD.  A  Book  of  Animal  Life. 
With  illustrations  by  Charles  Livingston  Bull. 

Appeals  alike  to  the  young  and  to  the  merely  youthful-hearted. 
Close  observation.  Graphic  description.  We  get  a  sense  of  the 
great  wild  and  its  denizens.  Out  of  the  common.  Vigorous  and  full 
of  character.  The  book  is  one  to  be  enjoyed ;  all  the  more  because 
it  smacks  of  the  forest  instead  of  the  museum.  John  Burroughs  says : 
"  The  volume  is  in  many  ways  the  most  brilliant  collection  of  Animal 
Stories  that  has  appeared.  It  reaches  a  high  order  of  literary  merit." 

THE  HEART  OF  THE  ANCIENT   WOOD.    Illustrated. 

This  book  strikes  a  new  note  in  lit  erature.  It  is  a  realistic  romance 
of  the  folk  of  the  forest — a  romance  of  the  alliance  of  peace  between 
a  pioneer's  daughter  in  the  depths  of  the  ancient  wood  and  the  wild 
beasts  who  felt  her  spell  and  became  her  friends.  It  is  not  fanciful, 
with  talking  beasts  ;  nor  is  it  merely  an  exquisite  idyl  of  the  beasts 
themselves.  It  is  an  actual  romance,  in  which  the  animal  characters 
play  their  parts  as  naturally  as  do  the  human.  The  atmosphere  of 
the  book  is  enchanting.  The  reader  feels  the  undulating,  whimpering 
music  of  the  forest,  the  power  of  the  shady  silences,  the  dignity  of  the 
beasts  who  live  closest  to  the  heart  of  the  wood. 

THE  WATCHERS  OF  THE  TRAILS.  A  companion  volume 
to  the  "  Kindred  of  the  Wild."  With  48  full  page  plates 
and  decorations  from  drawings  by  Charles  Livingston  Bull. 

These  stories  are  exquisite  in  their  refinement,  and  yet  robust  in 
their  appreciation  of  some  of  the  rougher  phases  of  woodcraft.  "This 
is  a  book  full  of  delight.  An  additional  charm  lies  in  Mr.  Bull's  faith 
ful  and  graphic  illustrations,  which  in  fashion  all  their  own  tell  the 
story  of  the  wild  life,  illuminating  and  supplementing  the  pen  pictures 
of  the  authors." — Literary  Digest. 

RED  FOX.  The  Story  of  His  Adventurous  Career  in  the  Ring- 
waak  Wilds,  and  His  Triumphs  over  the  Enemies  of  His 
Kind.  Wth  50  illustrations,  including  frontispiece  in  color 
and  cover  design  by  Charles  Livingston  Bull. 

A  brilliant  chapter  in  natural  history.  Infinitely  more  wholesome 
reading  than  the  average  tale  of  sport,  since  it  gives  a  glimpse  of  the 
hunt  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  hunted.  "  True  in  substance  but 
fascinating  as  fiction.  It  will  interest  old  and  young,  city-bound  and 
free-footed,  those  who  know  animals  and  those  who  do  not." — 
Chicago  Record-Herald. 

GROSSET    &   DUNLAP,   Publishers,         -         -        New  York 


NOVELS  OF  SOUTHERN  LIFE 

By  THOMAS  DIXON,  JR. 

Handsomely  bound  in  clotn.     Price,  75  cents  per  volume,  postpaid. 


THE  LEOPARD'S   SPOTS.     A    Story    of  the    White    Man'. 
Burden,  1865-1900.    With  illustrations  by  C.  D.  Williams. 

A  tale  of  the  South  about  the  dramatic  events  of  Destruction,  Re 
construction  and  Upbuilding.  The  work  is  able  and  eloquent  and  the 
verifiable  events  of  history  are  followed  closely  in  the  development  of 
a  story  full  of  struggle.  It  has  been  called  the  "  most  noteworthy 
book  of  recent  years." 

THE  CLANSMAN.    With  illustration*,>y  Arthur  I.  Keller. 

While  not  connected  with  it  in  any  way,  this  is  a  companion  vol 
ume  to  the  author's  "epoch-making"  story  The  Leopard's  Spots. 
It  is  a  novel  with  a  great  deal  to  it,  and  whicn  very  properly  is  going 
to  interest  many  thousands  of  readers.  *  *  *  It  is,  first  of  all,  aforce- 
ful,  dramatic,  absorbing  love  story,  with  a  sequence  of  events  so  sur 
prising  that  one  is  prepared  for  the  fact  that  much  of  it  is  founded  on 
actual  happenings;  but  Mr.  Dixon  has,  as  before,  a  deeper  purpose — 
he  has  aimed  to  show  that  the  original  formers  of  the  Ku  Klux  Klan 
were  modern  knights  errant  taking  the  only  means  at  hand  to  right 
intolerable  wrongs. 

THE  TRAITOR.    A  Story  of  the  Fall  of  the  Invisible  Empire. 
Illustrations  in  colors  by  C.  D.  Williams.    (Ready  July  1) 

The  third  and  last  book  in  this  remarkable  trilogy  of  novels  relating 
to  Southern  Reconstruction.  It  is  a  thrilling  story  of  love,  adventure, 
treason,  and  the  United  States  Secret  Service  dealing  with  the  decline 
and  fall  of  the  KuKlux  Klan. 

Mr.  Dixon  was  a  minister  of  the  church  before  he  undertook  writ 
ing  books.  Some  people  seem  to  think  that  there  is  a  little  too  much 
sermonizing  in  his  stories;  be  that  as  it  may,  the  books  have  been  very 
widely  read  and  have  provoked  no  end  of  discussion.  The  Recon 
struction  policy  is  a  big  subject  with  the  author — and  one  very  near 
to  his  heart  Throughout  all  his  books  there  is  the  ring  of  truth,  and 
honesty,  ana  hot-eyed  indignation. 

THE  ONE  WOMAN.    A  Story  of  Modern  Utopia. 

A  love  story  and  character  study  of  three  strong  men  and  two  fas 
cinating  women.  In  swift,  unified,  and  dramatic  action,  we  see 
Socialism  a  deadly  force,  in  the  hour  of  the  eclipse  of  Faith,  destroy 
ing  the  home  life  and  weakening  the  fiber  of  Anglo  Saxon  manhood. 

GROSSET    &  DUNLAP,  Publishers,        -        -        New  York 


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